Budget Impasse Continues : Finances: Wilson again refuses to submit a balanced spending plan. Assembly ends its weekend session.

With time running out before the state begins to pay its bills with IOUs, the Assembly convened for an unusual weekend session Saturday but quickly adjourned when Gov. Pete Wilson again refused to submit a plan to balance the state budget.

Democrats said they are trying to draft legislation, without Wilson’s cooperation, reflecting what the governor said he wanted to do in a broad outline released 10 days ago. The new fiscal year begins Wednesday.

“We are going to put his press release budget on the floor,” said Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco). “We’re going to try to make some sense out of it. It’s difficult, because it’s so sketchy there’s almost nothing there.”

Wilson has rejected a Democratic proposal that would balance the budget over two years by reducing state spending from $44 billion to $42 billion, taking money from local government and raising about $1 billion in state taxes. The Democratic plan would give the public schools more money but require cuts of 7% to 10% in health, welfare, prison and higher education programs.

The governor has said he wants to erase the state’s deficit in one year and balance the budget with spending cuts alone. He has said that funding for public schools should be cut about $200 per student, or 4.5%; that health and welfare programs should be reduced 15% and other programs as much as 30%.

But Wilson will not provide a list of the specific reductions in services that he would make to accomplish those cuts. Without it, the Legislature has nothing to act upon.

The only proposal from Wilson before the Legislature is the spending plan he proposed in January, which the governor acknowledges is nearly $6 billion out of balance. Unlike previous governors, and his action a year ago, when his staff said it was his obligation under the state Constitution, Wilson has not submitted a revised plan to bring the budget into balance.

Instead, he has convened a series of closed-door meetings with legislative leaders. Wilson said he hoped that being out of public view and sheltered from those who would oppose cuts in services, he could persuade the Democrats to agree to his terms.

The Democrats agreed to unprecedented cuts in spending but did not go far enough to satisfy Wilson. When an impasse developed, he went on television with a speech blasting the Democrats and then began a tour of television news programs in an effort to win support for his position.

Wilson said after his television speech he is willing to endure chaos in state government rather than compromise. If the state begins the fiscal year Wednesday without a budget, it will have to pay its bills with registered warrants, or IOUs, for the first time since the Great Depression. If the stalemate was to drag on, whole departments of government would have to shut down.

In his weekly radio address Saturday, Wilson again blasted the Democrats but offered no details on his program. Aides have said Wilson will not disclose a detailed plan unless Democrats agree in advance to the level of cuts he is proposing.

“Tough times require tough choices,” Wilson said in his radio speech. “But if we act now, we can make intelligent choices. We can make selective, rather than across-the-board cuts.”

Democrats say they are baffled at Wilson’s attempt to rally support for a position he will not fully disclose.

Brown said: “I would have assumed he would have been on the air with a chart saying here is my plan, (these are) the cuts, these are the areas of the cuts, this is what I want from public education, I’m submitting it tomorrow to the Legislature and I’m calling on you people throughout the state of California to ask them to vote for it. That isn’t what he did. He sounded like he was running . . . for reelection.”

Brown and Senate Leader David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys) may meet with the governor today. But they say the next move belongs to Wilson.

“There is an awful lot of feeling in (the Senate) just to give the governor his budget,” Roberti said. “Except, there is no budget. How can you vote on something that does not exist?”