Budget Plan Fails in Senate; Revival Possible

The Senate late Sunday night rejected a $58-billion compromise budget crafted by a Republican, supported by Democratic leaders but opposed by GOP Gov. Pete Wilson.

The measure failed on a 24-13 vote, falling three votes short of the necessary two-thirds majority required for passage, although supporters continued to lobby those who voted against it to switch their votes.

Supporters of the bill by Sen. Frank Hill (R-Whittier) kept the roll open for possible vote changes as the Senate continued its session into early this morning.

In the Assembly, which was also debating it late Sunday, prospects for the bill’s passage appeared doubtful.

The bill had the support of the education community but was strongly opposed by counties, other public agencies and a host of private interests.

Wilson was said to be lobbying against the measure, which he has threatened to veto. But after an afternoon meeting with legislative leaders, the governor left the Capitol to fly to Los Angeles for an event this morning unrelated to the budget.

Hill broke with the governor and the Republican legislative leadership to push for a compromise with Democrats. Hill said that by opposing his compromise, the governor appeared to be more concerned about a possible 1994 reelection battle than getting a budget for the fiscal year that began July 1.

“What’s the fight about?” Hill asked. “This budget is balanced. There’s no taxes. There’s no deficit rollover. There’s no accounting shifts. The real fight is do we cut education, as the governor says, or do we cut the bureaucracy?”

Although Hill, a conservative Republican, drafted his plan as a bipartisan compromise, he failed to draw any GOP vote except his own in the Senate. Twenty-one Democrats, two independents and Hill supported it, while 10 Republicans and three Democrats opposed it.

Senate Republican floor leader Ken Maddy of Fresno, one of the key negotiators in the stalled negotiations with Wilson, was the chief critic of Hill’s proposal, which he described as “an empty gesture” that has so many holes that it could not be implemented even if Wilson signed it.

Hill’s plan, approved Friday in a 5-1 vote in the two-house budget-writing conference committee, cuts $851 million from the $25 billion in state and local funds that Wilson proposed for the public schools in January. But that cut falls far short of the $2 billion that Wilson says must be sliced from his earlier offer.

Wilson said Friday that Hill’s proposal cuts at least $100 million too much from the executive branch bureaucracy. The governor also predicted that a $1.7-billion cut in city, county and special district spending would gut local police and fire services.

Hill’s plan also called for cuts of about 10% in health and welfare spending, including a 4.5% reduction in welfare grants to poor families with children and the same size cut in aid to the aged, blind and disabled. It would reduce higher education spending by about 7% while requiring a 40% onetime surcharge on fees at the California State University campuses and 24% in the University of California system.

Hill said before the Senate vote that he was counting on at least six Republican members bucking their leadership and voting for the plan. He met with a handful of Assembly Republicans in an apartment across the street from the Capitol in a last-ditch effort to secure their votes.

The focus Sunday was on the so-called “trailer bills”--the legislation that usually follows the line-item budget bill and is needed to make the spending plan work. At least four such bills, including a 200-page measure on health and welfare services, were expected to be considered Sunday night.

Some members have said that they wanted to vote for the Hill plan but preferred to wait until there was bipartisan agreement not only on the budget, but on all the implementing legislation--perhaps 15 or 20 bills in all. But Hill pushed for a vote on the budget anyway.

“You can’t solve every issue before you have a budget,” Hill said.

As an example, he cited the local government issue, where the governor is demanding that the Legislature give counties the greatest possible flexibility to run health and welfare programs as they please. Hill said he agrees with Wilson, but noted that the counties have worked out their own agreement with the Democrats and predicted that the issue never would be solved until the counties could see what cuts they faced.

“If you make the kind of cuts we’re talking about here tonight, you will see the mentality of the counties change, for their own survival,” Hill said, adding that the governor could always veto the budget if he did not get accompanying legislation to his liking.

Senate Leader David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys) said he supported the plan even though it included many things he opposes.

“I’m in a compromise mode,” Roberti said.

Before the Senate vote Sunday, Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) said he intended to vote for the budget but seemed to doubt that it would get sufficient Republican support needed for passage--at least on the first try.

“If the Senate passes, it becomes a hell of a pressure point for the Assembly,” Brown said. “It becomes very difficult in my house for the members to withhold (their votes).”

Hill said the question was whether legislators were willing to exert their authority and challenge Wilson.

“This is about whether or not the Senate and Assembly can independently make their best judgment,” he said, “to try to work out these compromises as opposed to the governor saying we no longer need a Legislature; what we need is a Department of Finance to draft legislation, and the job of legislators is just to vote for it.”

State Budget Watch

On the state’s 40th day without a budget, here were the key developments in Sacramento:

THE PROBLEM: Legislators and Gov. Pete Wilson need to bridge a $10.7-billion gap between anticipated revenues and the amount it would take to continue all programs at their current levels, rebuild a reserve for emergencies and erase last year’s deficit. Without a budget for the fiscal year that began July 1, the state is short of cash and cannot borrow money to pay its bills. Instead, claims are being paid with IOUs, known as registered warrants.

IOUs

Issued Sunday: None.

Since July 1: 1.1 million, with a total value of $2.2 billion.

GOV. PETE WILSON: Met for about three hours with legislative leaders but made no public report on the status of the negotiations.

THE LEGISLATURE: The Senate and the Assembly convened to consider a compromise $58-billion spending plan. The proposed budget would cut deeper into local government and the state bureaucracy than Wilson has proposed but would not reduce education spending by as much as Wilson says is necessary.