Assembly Rejects Wilson’s Education Cuts Package, 75-0 : Budget: Democrats flatly turn down $2-billion reduction in school spending. Governor accuses them of gamesmanship for staging the vote.

Assembly Democrats sent Gov. Pete Wilson’s proposed cut in education spending in front of a political firing squad Monday where they shot it to pieces in hopes of persuading the governor to abandon it.

But Wilson and Republican lawmakers said the Assembly’s 75-0 rejection of the proposal--which would take back $1.1 billion that public schools have spent and subtract a similar amount from next year’s education budget--was not a fair measure of support for the governor’s program.

Instead, they said, the political execution was a fake--the equivalent of a Democrat-staged theatrical production. If so, it was the first act of a drama that will play itself out before the state enacts a budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

Most lawmakers seem to believe that the ultimate cut in education spending will be somewhere between the $2 billion that Wilson has proposed and the $600 million that Democrats say they are prepared to accept.

“The battle over school funding is one that no one can afford to win,” said Democratic Assemblyman Phillip Isenberg of Sacramento.

What he meant was that even if Republicans succeed in the Legislature, they will lose politically by taking the heat for forcing schools to cut their budgets. But if Democrats win and protect education from deep cuts, they will have to propose making up the difference in the state’s total budget either by raising taxes or cutting other programs more.

The education finance question is the first piece of the budget puzzle because it is the largest piece of general fund spending--what the state does with school funding determines how much is left to spend on everything else. The school question has to be decided before June 30, when the state sends its last payment of the current fiscal year to school districts.

Depending on how the education issue is settled, the state will have between $38 billion and $40 billion to spend in the fiscal year that begins July 1--compared to the $44 billion it plans to spend in the current year.

Wilson last week proposed easing the pressure on the rest of the budget by giving schools no more than the minimum required by Proposition 98, the voter-approved constitutional amendment that controls education funding. Part of Wilson’s proposal requires taking back $1.1 billion the state last July told schools to plan for in the 1991-92 academic year.

If the state lets the schools keep that money, state and local revenues for kindergarten through community colleges in the coming year will total about $25 billion. Wilson’s proposal would leave them with about $23 billion to spend--about 1% less than the current year, even as 200,000 more students are pouring into classrooms across the state.

In a move to embarrass Wilson, Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) put the governor’s education proposal up for a vote on the Assembly floor Monday, where it was rejected.

“The governor says that because kids are the biggest share of the budget, they ought to suffer the biggest cut,” said Democrat Delaine Eastin of Union City, chairwoman of the Assembly Education Committee. “If that’s true, this country’s not as good as it used to be. I say it’s more important to preserve the education of our children than to preserve tax breaks for wealthy Californians.”

But Republican lawmakers present, who voted with Democrats against the proposal, said they did so because it did not include the rest of Wilson’s plan. Wilson proposes cutting the strings on billions of dollars in state payments to schools that are narrowly targeted for everything from special education to classes for the gifted, from integration programs to efforts to combat dropouts and drug abuse.

Republicans say they favor giving every district the basic amount of per-student funding and letting local boards decide how to spend it.

Wilson said the vote was “an exercise in gamesmanship that proved absolutely nothing.” He called on Democrats to return to the bargaining table for “serious business” and “not just duck it but make those painful cuts that no one wants to make.”

Wilson’s education cut is part of his proposal to erase the state’s deficit in one year and balance the budget without raising taxes. Along with the education cut he has proposed reductions of up to 30% in some programs, including a 15% cut in health and welfare services.

The Democratic plan, given final approval Monday by a Senate-Assembly conference committee, also would cut health and welfare spending but would protect education spending by raising taxes and spreading repayment of the deficit over two years.

Wilson and the Democrats appear to agree that the state should begin reversing the bailout of local governments that followed Proposition 13. The first step would be to take back about $1 billion from counties and cities and give them broader authority to raise local taxes.

Times staff writer Carl Ingram contributed to this article.