Teachers Sue to Block Education Budget

The California Teachers Assn. filed suit Thursday to block Gov. Pete Wilson’s education spending plan, contending that the centerpiece of this year’s long-delayed budget illegally circumvented Proposition 98, the voter-approved constitutional protection for school funding.

The teachers’ legal action, coupled with a drafting error in the legislation implementing the education budget, may open a gaping hole in the precariously balanced spending plan and could guarantee more money for public schools in the future than intended by Wilson and the Legislature.

Both problems stem from the move by Wilson--ratified by lawmakers after a 63-day stalemate--to hold down education funding to help erase an $11-billion gap between projected revenues and the amount needed to pay off a deficit, rebuild a reserve and continue all programs at last year’s levels for another 12 months.

Although Proposition 98 includes a provision allowing lawmakers to suspend the minimum guarantee with a vote of two-thirds of the members of each house in the Legislature, neither Wilson nor many legislators were eager to take that politically risky step.

Instead, they devised a complex set of accounting transactions that achieved reductions without setting aside the Proposition 98 guarantee.

The provisions essentially redefined $1 billion of last year’s school appropriation as a loan, forcing the schools to pay it back by deducting the same amount off the top of this year’s minimum guarantee.

“The effect of that kind of manipulation is to keep schools permanently underfunded,” said D. A. (Del) Weber, president of the 235,000-member teachers union. “We owe it to our members as well as our students to contest that action.”

A spokeswoman for Wilson defended the so-called recapture of the education money as constitutional and criticized the teachers for opposing a deal that kept the schools’ per-student funding stable in a year when many other programs were cut deeply.

“We are disappointed that the education community is challenging a bipartisan budget agreement that resulted in schools receiving almost a 5% increase in funding and which guaranteed that per-pupil spending remained the same,” said Kassy Perry, Wilson’s deputy director of communications.

Wilson, meanwhile, also filed a lawsuit, this one designed to keep his legal options open should the Legislature not agree to fix a drafting error in the same provisions that the teachers union is challenging.

The mistake makes the $1-billion shift unworkable, according to Controller Gray Davis. The error, if left uncorrected, would create a $2-billion deficit in the state’s $40.8-billion general fund at the end of the current fiscal year. Although schools might not get that money this year, they eventually would be owed it under the terms of Proposition 98.

A spokesman for Democratic Assembly Speaker Willie Brown of San Francisco offered no assurances that his boss would cooperate in an effort to repair the error.

“The ball is in the governor’s court,” said Jim Lewis, Brown’s press secretary. “I would expect the Administration would tell us what they think needs to be done. I haven’t heard any official communication from them.”

A spokesman for Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys) was more conciliatory, saying that Roberti was willing to correct the mistake.

Steve Glazer, Roberti’s press secretary, said Roberti believes that any technical problems can be handled when the Legislature reconvenes.