Wilson to Call for College Fee Hikes : Education: His plan, to be unveiled today, maintains funding level for public schools. Budget is tenuously based on federal reimbursements for immigration costs.

Gov. Pete Wilson today will propose giving public schools enough money to keep pace with expanding enrollments next year while encouraging another round of fee increases for students in community colleges and the state’s two university systems, Administration sources say.

Wilson also intends to up the ante in his ongoing battle with the federal government over the cost of providing services to illegal immigrants in California, those sources said. He will ask for even more federal money than he did a year ago, when Congress ended up approving a far lower amount than he had requested.

Wilson will release next fiscal year’s state budget plan, of which education is the largest component, at a news conference today. If the Legislature goes along, it would allow elementary and secondary schools to spend the same amount per student next school year as they are today. This level of per-pupil spending keeps an agreement the governor made to end a budget impasse two years ago.

California’s community colleges, under Wilson’s plan, would reduce services to students unless the junior colleges raise fees from $13 per unit to $20.

The state’s two university systems, meanwhile, would get modest increases in taxpayer funding but would be expected to pass on hefty fee increases to their students in order to keep pace with rising costs.

All levels of education fare relatively well in Wilson’s budget compared to many other programs, Administration sources said. Wilson hopes to provide money for an expected 16,000 additional preschool children and more funds for programs he created to provide increased health and mental health counseling services to schoolchildren.

But the entire spending plan could unravel because it apparently rests on the fragile hope that the state will receive more than $2 billion from the federal government as reimbursement for services to immigrants.

Wilson last year asked for $1.4 billion from the federal government to offset the cost of providing health and welfare programs to immigrants and imprisoning illegal immigrants who break the law. Congress approved only $324 million.

*

The governor’s wish list includes $1.7 billion he says it will cost to educate the 400,000 school-age illegal immigrants that Wilson’s Finance Department estimates live in California. But Administration sources say Wilson is committed to protecting education funding even if the federal government does not come through.

Wilson’s education budget, according to documents obtained by The Times, would maintain spending for kindergartners through 12-graders at this year’s level of $4,217 per student.

It would do so without resorting to the kind of controversial bookkeeping shifts--including loans to the schools and property tax transfers--that Wilson has advocated in years past. The documents say that Wilson’s budget would give the schools $336 million more than is required by Proposition 98, the voter-approved constitutional amendment that set minimum levels of school funding.

The governor’s budget proposes $29.1 billion from all sources for kindergarten through 12th-grade schools, a 2.5% increase over this year. Enrollment is expected to grow by the same percentage.

But the budget provides no money to help public education keep pace with inflation.

John Mockler, a lobbyist for the Los Angeles Unified School District, said Wilson’s proposal would leave the schools with far less than they will need next fiscal year. Mockler said the schools have not received money for cost-of-living increases for three years.

“Health care costs are going up, the cost of paper is going up, utilities go up, all the costs of running the business side of schooling are going up,” Mockler said. “Equal dollars is better than less dollars, but you’re going to have fewer services because those services cost more.”

The Administration concedes that California ranks only 35th in the nation in total spending per pupil, although education advocates maintain that the state’s ranking is even lower than that.

For community colleges, Wilson proposes a 3.4% increase, to $3.6 billion, from all local, state and federal sources. More than one-third of the 3.4% would come from the proposed fee increase.

Community College Chancellor David M. Mertes said the increase would prompt an estimated 100,000 students to drop out of the 1.4-million student system. He said their rule of thumb is that for every $1 increase, about 1% of the student population leaves.

*

Patrick McCallum, executive director of the statewide community college faculty association, said the “sticker shock” alone would discourage many students, especially poorer Latinos and African Americans. “For the Los Angeles area, it will have a very damaging impact on the community college system,” he said.

“You’re looking at $300 for a fee (for a full-time student), you’re looking at $200 for your books and you’re looking at not being able to work, and you say, ‘I’m just not going to be able to come up with the direct cost of $500 to attend community college,’ ” McCallum said.

Even the fact that Wilson hopes to counter the fee increase by offering nearly $91 million in additional student aid will not help maintain enrollments, he said.

Despite those prospects, Mertes and McCallum said they were encouraged by the 3.4% overall increase Wilson wants to give the community college system.

Although it is only a small part of the proposed $3.6-billion budget, Mertes said he was especially pleased that Wilson wanted to set aside $10 million for the system to begin linking campuses with telecommunications networks, as well as $2 million for a new fund to help pay for technological innovations that will lower the per-pupil cost of instruction.

Wilson’s proposed budget falls short of the increases that University of California and Cal State officials had requested. UC administrators wanted an increase of 8%, or $142 million, and Cal State trustees were looking for an additional 14%, or $214 million.

But Cal State Chancellor Barry Munitz on Thursday took solace in the fact that the governor would grant the 323,000-student system a 3.9% increase--$57 million extra--rather than impose cuts as he has during the past several years. Munitz said the state has cut about $800 million from the Cal State budget since 1990.

“My position is we should be grateful for what he has given us . . . and we should now prepare to talk to the Legislature and see what its position will be,” Munitz said.

In asking for the 14% increase from Wilson, Cal State trustees have already voted to recommend that student fees be raised $342 per year for undergraduates and $432 for graduate students. All Cal State students now pay $1,440 per year. Under the California Constitution, the final decision on Cal State fees rests with the Legislature.

Although Cal State is getting less than administrators had requested, Munitz emphatically said he will not seek an additional increase in student fees to make up the difference.

“We said to our students and their families . . . ‘This is how you should be planning for next year. We’re giving you a year in advance and we’re not going to jerk you around.’ . . . I just feel strongly that we are not in the situation that every year we should be increasing fees on an ad-hoc basis to respond to a budget crisis,” Munitz said.

*

How University of California officials will handle that controversial question is unknown. A UC spokesman declined Thursday to comment on the budget figures until they are released formally by Wilson this morning.

Wilson’s proposed budget would provide a $58-million increase, or 3.2%. That is far less than the university was hoping for.

A budget plan released by UC President Jack W. Peltason in October maintained that the 163,000-student system needs annual boosts of 7% to 8% from Sacramento in the near future to recoup losses and keep even with inflation before facing an expected influx of students by the end of the decade. UC officials estimate that the state has cut $341 million from the university’s budget since 1990.

In November, UC regents voted to request that Wilson give them an additional $142 million, or 8% more. But they were warned to expect only half of that from the state, and Peltason has said that student fee increases of $650 per year would be required in 1994 and the near future to make up the difference.

Student representatives said Wilson’s modest proposed increase translates into the same kind of political and economic pressure that has boosted student fees 128% since 1989. UC students now pay an average of $3,727 annually.

“Unfortunately, what that means is that Gov. Wilson is continuing the trend he’s demonstrated during the first three years of his term--to block access to higher education,” said Donny Emerick, a field representative for the UC Students Assn. “Whenever you raise a fee, you’re going to decrease the amount of people who can afford to go to school.”

The Soaring Costs of College

Resident undergraduates in California’s two university systems have seen their fees more than double since 1990, and Gov. Pete Wilson’s proposed 1994-95 state budget virtually guarantees another round of increases. While the spending plan gives the UC and Cal State systems a modest boost, it is less than administrators say they need to make up for past cuts and stave off estimated student fee increases of $342 at CSU and $650 at UC next fall.

CAL STATE:

Increase over 10 years: 191% 1983-84: $612 1984-85: $573 1985-86: $573 1986-87: $573 1987-88: $630 1988-89: $684 1989-90: $708 1990-91: $780 1991-92: $936 1992-93: $1,308 1993-94: $1,440 1994-95: $1,782 (proposed)

UC FEES:

Increase over 10 years: 216% 1983-84: $1,387 1984-85: $1,324 1985-86: $1,326 1986-87: $1,345 1987-88: $1,492 1988-89: $1,554 1989-90: $1,634 1990-91: $1,820 1991-92: $2,486 1992-93: $3,044 1993-94: $3,727 1994-95: $4,377 (proposed)

Note: Fees do not include room, board, parking, health and activities costs.

Source: University of California, Cal State