Countywide : Treasurer Criticizes Wilson for Impasse

State Treasurer Kathleen Brown on Thursday chastised Gov. Pete Wilson for the budget impasse and said California’s most serious problem is a crisis of confidence.

During a speech at the 66th annual convention of the California School Employees Assn., Brown said education should be government’s No. 1 priority and urged delegates to help make the 21st Century “the California Century.”

“As we look to the future, we are not going to be able to expect mere economic growth to help us through tough times,” Brown said, noting that California has not seen such a severe recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. “We’re going to have to go through restructuring, we’re going to have to go through realignments and some very tough decision-making.”

Speaking at the Anaheim Hilton and Towers to a crowd of 1,500 convention-goers from 750 school districts around the state, Brown said that she is ashamed that the state had to issue warrants this month rather than pay its bills and that California’s credit rating has dropped to near that of Massachusetts.

“I don’t want to be Treasurer IOU,” Brown said, referring to the name she was recently called at a civic event. “We’ve got to write to that governor and say: ‘Get a budget, now. And do it right, do the right thing.’ ”

Speaking on the fourth day of the weeklong convention--at which budget cutbacks and impending layoffs have been the hottest topics--the treasurer said the monthlong impasse has cost the state more than $200 million in overtime pay and interest on the warrants and state bonds.

“What could we buy for $200 million?” she asked rhetorically, offering suggestions of 10,000 classified employee positions, 4,000 teachers, 40 new elementary schools or 1 million textbooks. “The costs are real.”

As the Legislature and the governor wrangle with the numbers, “everything must be on the table,” Brown said. She suggested some new taxes, program cuts and reductions in tax loopholes.

With difficult decisions ahead, Brown said, education must remain the highest priority as a foundation for the future.

“You are on the front lines,” she told the bus drivers, cafeteria workers, custodians, security guards, teacher’s aides and administrative assistants in the crowd. “You are the infrastructure that keeps the schools running.”

More frustrating than the financial crisis, though, is the crisis of confidence that plagues the residents of California, Brown said.

Rather than stew over the state’s problems, politicians should seize this opportunity to streamline government and make structural change, she said. She added that in her 18 months in office she has already computerized one division and eliminated another.

“There are lots of solutions out there--we just need the political will and the resolve and the leadership to get together and work them out,” Brown said.

Praising California’s people, geography and natural resources, she reminded the crowd that the state is No. 1 in aerospace, entertainment, trade, technology and tourism. “We’ve got what it takes, we just need leaders who know how to build on that strength,” she said.

The current changes in society are as fundamental as the transformation from steam to electricity or from an agrarian to an industrial economy, Brown said. She reminded the audience that just a generation ago, there were no frozen yogurt, portable phones or videocassette recorders.

“You name it, we didn’t have it 20 or 30 years ago,” she said. “The changes are coming, and California has to be ready.”