Welfare, School Funds in State Budget Debated : Finance: Democrats seek softer blow to social programs and ask Wilson to drop plan to withhold $700 million from education’s slice of fiscal pie. Brown says accord is ‘minimum three, four days away.’

As California enters its 18th day without a budget, Democrats Monday proposed softening welfare cuts and pressed Gov. Pete Wilson to spend more money for public schools.

Assembly Democratic Leader Willie Brown, Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer and public school lobbyists are trying to persuade Wilson to give schools $700 million-plus that he wants to withhold from the $26 billion that public schools stand to receive in the new budget.

The sum in question works out to roughly an extra $132 per student, in a state that spends among the lowest amount per pupil in the nation.

Wilson is offering schools their first cost-of-living increase in four years. But the governor has balked at giving them the extra $700 million, contending that it is part of a “loan repayment”--essentially an accounting maneuver invoked to end the budget impasse in 1992 by giving schools an extra $1.8 billion in that year.

School officials never agreed to the loan. In a suit in Sacramento County Superior Court, school advocates won a judgment that the “loan” was illegal, and that the state owes the money to the schools.

With spending on kindergarten through 12th grade still a subject of debate, Brown (D-San Francisco) said a budget deal is “a minimum three-four days away.” Others said a budget accord could be reached during the weekend. The state has been without a budget since the new fiscal year began on July 1.

Assembly Republican Leader Jim Brulte of Rancho Cucamonga charged that Brown is “lying” by saying the issue that separates Democrats and Republicans is school funding.

“The issue that’s holding this up is welfare cuts, and the Democrats’ inability to agree to them,” Brulte said Monday.

Wilson has proposed cuts in excess of 10% in various types of welfare. Under his plan, welfare recipients and aged, blind and disabled people living in the five most rent-expensive counties, including Orange and Ventura, would receive the highest payments.

Under the governor’s plan, mid-rent counties, including Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco, would be cut somewhat more, and rural counties, where rent is lowest, would take the deepest cuts.

Democrats responded Monday with a plan to divide California into only two regions. Welfare recipients would receive larger checks in Los Angeles, Orange and 15 other counties, and recipients in the remaining 41 counties, including Riverside and San Bernardino, would get lower grants.

The Republican plan would reduce spending by more than $70 million on welfare for families. The Democratic plan would reduce welfare spending by half that amount.

“We know we have to make some cuts in welfare,” Lockyer said.

But Lockyer (D-Hayward) lashed out at Brulte’s statement that Democrats are holding up the budget because of welfare cuts, saying Brulte is a “propagandist” and “should be ashamed of himself.”

“His analysis is always pure politics,” Lockyer said. “It has very little to do with reality. So he would like it to be, ‘The Democrats are fighting for welfare.’ It isn’t accurate . . . He brings absolutely nothing to the table except political analysis.”

Lockyer, Brown, Brulte, Senate GOP Leader Ken Maddy and Assembly Speaker Doris Allen presented details of the budget to their caucuses Monday, and were scheduled to report to Wilson Monday night.

Whether any deal struck by Wilson and the legislative leaders will get the necessary two-thirds vote in the Senate and, especially, in the fractious Assembly remains to be seen.

“This group on both sides refuses to be led,” said Assemblyman Louis Caldera (D-Los Angeles). “It’s going to be really hard [for Brown and Brulte] to crack heads. People are going to feel free to question the budget.”

Caldera and several other Los Angeles-area lawmakers met with Los Angeles County officials in an effort to come up with a plan to help the county with its own $1.2-billion budget problem.

Among the items being discussed are proposals to tie state aid to the county to a requirement that the county submit to a detailed audit of its spending or possibly that it agree to a board of outside experts to oversee county spending, Caldera and others said.