NEWS ANALYSIS : Wilson Baffles Lawmakers With Reversals on Budget : Politics: He supported then withdrew five major proposals. Aides say it shows willingness to compromise.

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Pete Wilson, who has criticized lawmakers for lacking the courage to stand up to special interests, is increasingly confounding legislators and lobbyists by alternately supporting and opposing measures to help balance the state’s spending plan.

Since offering his first budget in January, Wilson has supported then pulled from the bargaining table at least five major proposals that together would have saved the state more than $1 billion--nearly enough to resolve his differences with Assembly Democrats over education spending.

Wilson widened the gap by $100 million Wednesday when he withdrew support for two proposals involving state prisons. One would have allowed certain nonviolent felons to go without parole supervision at the conclusion of their sentences. The other would have granted work credits to inmates in the state prisons’ reception centers--reducing the time they would serve behind bars.

Although the proposals were contained in the so-called Republican plan published by Wilson’s office and also were in the budget he proposed July 1, the governor denied ever having supported them.

“It was in one staff version,” Wilson said of the prison matter. “This is one of a number of poor suggestions, driven not by the desire of anybody making them, but driven by the fact of being pressed by us to find ways to save money.”

Wilson aides say that the governor’s reversals demonstrate his willingness to compromise.

“I think both sides have presented and changed proposals as more information became available, and that’s going to continue to happen,” Finance Director Thomas Hayes said.

But the governor’s critics say that unlike the budget-writing conference committee, which has backed away from measures Wilson said were unacceptable, the governor has pulled things off the table that had been agreed to by the Administration and the legislative leadership.

That tactic is bad bargaining at best and, at worst, makes it appear as if Wilson is deliberately prolonging the state’s record-setting budget deadlock, his critics say.

“They’re either incredibly incompetent or incredibly political,” Assemblyman Steve Peace (D-La Mesa) said.

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) said the governor’s moves have made it more difficult to close a deal on the budget, now 38 days overdue.

“You’re always dealing with a floating number,” Brown said. “If I can’t rely on what is published out of his office, over his signature, that he hands to me and says this is his proposal . . . what do I have to do, ask him about each one of those items individually and say: ‘Do you really mean this or is this just for show?’ ”

Republican Sen. Frank Hill of Whittier, who has broken with the governor and is trying to round up support for an alternative budget plan, said he has grown increasingly frustrated as the budget gap has widened, rather than narrowed, since Wilson reconvened meetings with legislative leaders a week ago.

“We’re losing ground, not gaining ground,” Hill said. “The hole is growing. That’s why you’re seeing an uprising from the membership.”

Hill’s plan, which includes several items that Wilson opposes, is scheduled for a vote in the conference committee today and may be heard on the floors of the Assembly and Senate on Sunday night. Several other Republicans also said Thursday that they are considering voting for Hill’s plan because the governor and legislative leaders seem to be making so little progress.

That lack of progress has been attributed in large part to a big difference on school funding. Wilson wants to cut about $2 billion from what he proposed for schools in January. Democrats have said they would be willing to support a figure between $600 million and about $1 billion.

Wilson has attracted praise and criticism for clinging tenaciously to his positions opposed to taxes and in favor of cutting school spending. But ironically, some legislators are saying that the governor’s fluid positions on a series of less publicized issues may be playing just as great a role in blocking a solution. They note that the total value of the items on which Wilson has switched his position is nearly as large as the gap between the governor and the Democrats on education spending.

Besides the prison issue, Wilson has taken at least four other major items off the table after supporting them. They were:

* Port districts. Wilson at one time planned to transfer $75 million to the state’s general fund from the agencies that run the state’s seaports. But the fund shift, based on the idea that the ports are on state-owned tideland property, was vigorously opposed by the port managers and by business and labor interests with connections to the ports.

“We took a second look at that and decided that it was not in the best interests of the economic climate of the state,” said Cynthia Katz, assistant finance director.

* Enterprise districts. Wilson in January proposed taking about $350 million in property tax revenue from public districts that deliver water, sewer and other services but are theoretically run like businesses. The move was opposed by the districts and by developers who feared a large increase in water and sewer hookup charges. Wilson abandoned it.

* Bonds. Wilson supported a proposal to refinance state bonds that was supposed to net $245 million for the general fund. Finance Director Hayes said the proposal by Treasurer Kathleen Brown turned out to be more like a second mortgage than a refinancing and would have resulted in about $15 million in higher interest costs over the next three years.

“We should have looked at that in more detail,” Hayes said. “But when the specifics became known I told the governor what it was and he did not want to do it.”

* Renters credit. Wilson in January proposed repealing the renters tax credit, which provides grants to poor renters even if they do not pay income taxes. The proposal would have saved $375 million, but Wilson withdrew it after Democrats said it was a tax increase for renters and used it to justify their proposals to increase taxes on businesses and the wealthy.

Wilson also has reversed himself on the issue of whether cities should be forced to give up their share of the property tax the state shifted to them 13 years ago to help ease the blow of Proposition 13. In June, Wilson proposed that the cities, like counties, lose some of their property tax money. But the governor reversed his position in July after being lobbied by the cities and by statewide business groups that said the tax shift could decrease the cities’ incentive to attract and approve manufacturing development. Now the governor reportedly is open to the proposal again.

In addition to legislators, aides and lobbyists who negotiate with the governor’s staff complain that the reversals make it difficult to know whether they can rely on the word of his aides, or even that of the governor.

“You’d like to know whom you need to convince, whom you should be focusing on to make your argument,” one lobbyist said.

Democratic Assemblyman Richard Katz of Sylmar said: “Any time someone puts things on the table, then, just as everyone is about to agree to them, take them off the table, you have to wonder about their commitment to solve the problem.”

But Dan Schnur, Wilson’s chief spokesman, denied that Wilson is deliberately hobbling negotiations.

“If it were up to him, there’d be a budget by the close of business tomorrow,” Schnur said.

Times staff writer Mark Gladstone contributed to this story.