Billionaire Funds New Think Tank : Research: William R. Hewlett pledges $70 million for institute to study California public policy issues.

Billionaire William R. Hewlett, one of the wealthiest men in America, will donate $70 million to create a public policy institute to study California issues, it was announced Thursday.

The nonpartisan foundation will be known as the Public Policy Institute of California and will be immediately propelled by Hewlett’s endowment into the front line of think tanks studying the state and its policies.

“California’s future depends in large part on the quality of its public policy and the debate which underlies that policy,” Hewlett said in announcing the gift. “This state is larger and more complex than many nations. It needs a private institution that can do objective, sophisticated policy analysis, without fear or favor, and report it effectively to citizens and policy makers.”

The announcement said the institute will not take positions on policy matters, but will attempt to provide information and analysis that will help state officials reach decisions on key issues.

The new organization will be located in the San Francisco Bay Area. Its president will be David Lyon, currently RAND’s corporate vice president for external affairs. Former UC Berkeley Chancellor Roger Heyns will serve as chairman of the board.

“The Public Policy Institute of California will generate facts, figures and objective analyses that both leaders and citizenry can weigh in making their policy choices,” Heyns said in a statement Thursday. “It will not itself make policy, but it should help Californians to make better policy.”

Public policy experts hailed the creation of the institute, calling the endowment substantial and expressing hope that the work produced will fill a void created by massive cuts in the budget of the state’s own legislative analyst. Historically, the legislative analyst’s office provided objective analyses of state budget and policy issues.

“I think this sounds very significant for California, and very positive as well,” said Lee Friedman, associate dean of UC Berkeley’s graduate school of public policy. “With state budget cuts, there has been a big gap in the impartial analysis of what we’re doing in California.”

Friedman added: “If this is truly going to be an objective institute, that’s great, because we don’t have much like it.”

With the endowment of $70 million, the institute could have an initial operating budget of $3 million to $4 million annually, Lyon said Thursday. By contrast, the Santa Monica-based RAND think tank has an endowment of about $60 million and an annual operating budget of more than $100 million.

Lyon said the California think tank would be modeled on the Brookings Institute, a venerable independent research organization based in Washington. The Brookings Institute has a larger endowment--about $100 million--but that was built over many decades.

“It’s one thing to build an endowment,” Lyon noted, “and it’s another to start with one this size. What it allows us to do is avoid becoming immediately involved in fund raising. We can prove ourselves first before going out and building a larger budget.”

Although the institute has not yet set a research agenda, Lyon said it will initially focus on “the interplay between public finance and governance.”

“It is clear that the resiliency of the state tax base in a changing economy . . . is well worth our attention in the first six or nine months,” he said. The state’s growth and changing demographics will also be top priorities.

Hewlett, 80, joined David Packard to found the Silicon Valley electronics giant Hewlett-Packard in a garage. Last year, Hewlett helped finance a lawsuit by the Sierra Club to fight logging at Squaw Valley. Packard has used some of his wealth to build the Monterey Aquarium and finance marine research.