Wilson, Legislative Leaders Approve Budget Proposal : Capitol: Plan would boost aid to schools, cut welfare. Vote expected Saturday, with fate in Assembly uncertain.

Gov. Pete Wilson and legislative leaders agreed Wednesday to a $56-billion state budget proposal that gives public schools a major boost, but will leave a welfare mother with two children with as little as $538 a month to make ends meet.

The deal was struck 26 days after the constitutional deadline for approving a budget passed by July 1, and after at least 16 closed-door meetings between the Republican governor and the leaders of the Assembly and Senate.

“Every budget is necessarily a compromise,” Wilson said, “and this one, like the four that preceded, is driven in large measure by the constraints of available revenues and competing claims. But it is a fair agreement and I think it should be adopted without delay.”

Now that the leadership has agreed to a spending plan for the 1995-1996 fiscal year, the focus turns to the rank-and-file lawmakers--many of whom vow to vote against the spending plan.

They cite many reasons: too much abortion funding, welfare cuts that are too deep, a belief that the budget is in the red, and not enough aid for financially troubled Los Angeles County.

A floor vote on the budget is expected to come Saturday. The budget needs a two-thirds majority vote in order to pass the Legislature--27 votes in the Senate and 54 in the Assembly.

Senate and Assembly leaders were briefing individual lawmakers in private caucus meetings late Wednesday, and will be doing the same today and Friday. A major point of what essentially will be a sales pitch by the leaders is that public schools fared well.

“It’s a major victory for public schools,” said Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward). “A second victory is the success in blocking college student fee increases. After that, it is more humanitarian triage, trying to minimize the impact on public assistance recipients.”

Passage appears likely in the somewhat collegial state Senate. But whether 54 members of the fractious Assembly can agree to the budget remains a question.

“They’re more polar,” Lockyer said. “They have farther to come to get to the middle.”

Wilson and the legislative leaders provided few details, and the final budget proposal will not be printed until later this week. But some highlights are available:

* Wilson agreed to boost public school funding from his original proposal of $26 billion by about $1 billion, spread over two years. Most of that additional money materialized when Wilson relented on his demand that public schools repay $800 million this year of a $1.8-billion loan given schools in 1992.

Under the plan, schools must repay only $150 million this year, and pay off the remainder by the 2001-2002 fiscal year.

* Wilson agreed to drop his proposal to increase tuition by 10% at the University of California and California State University systems, and added $51 million to the $3 billion that universities and colleges receive from general tax revenue.

* Welfare for families will be cut $141 million statewide, pushing the monthly grant for a mother with two children down 4.9% from $595 to $566 in high-rent areas, including Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura counties. In lower-cost areas, including the Inland Empire, the grant level will drop to approximately $538 for a mother with two children.

* Aid to the poor who are elderly, disabled and blind will be cut by similar percentages--pushing the grant for an individual from $614 a month to $584 in high-rent areas, and $556 a month in low-rent areas.

As legislative leaders tried to sell their colleagues on the deal, several disabled people in wheelchairs blocked the front door to Wilson’s outer office, vowing to stay until they were arrested. Twenty-three demonstrators were cited for disturbing the peace and released, but none was jailed.

“I’m having trouble making ends meet now,” said Daryl Wisdom, 47, in a wheelchair because of polio. Wisdom’s pharmacy bill is $200 a month, he said.

* The budget contains no general tax cut and no overall tax increase. Wilson had proposed a $7 billion, 15% across the board income tax cut for individuals and for banks and corporations, spread over three years, but the Democrat-controlled Senate killed it this month.

* Although there is no general tax cut, high earners stand to benefit. The two upper-income tax brackets for people whose annual taxable income exceeds $100,000 will expire at the end of the year. As a result, the state will lose about $300 million in revenues.

* Prison spending fared well, but sources said the governor agreed to pare the $3.5-billion corrections budget by $126 million.

* Lockyer made a final effort Wednesday to persuade Wilson to cut the number of his political appointees, calling it “welfare for a lot of rich white guys on his political staff.”

But the day ended with a vague agreement to make cuts in state bureaucracies, though such efforts rarely succeed. In last year’s budget deal, there was a pledge to slash $150 million worth of positions. The end result was a $4-million reduction.

* Despite a frantic lobbying effort by Los Angeles County supervisors, the financially strapped county gained little in the budget talks.

But a last-minute plan by state Sen. Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles) to shift $75 million to county coffers from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has gained support. That $75 million would come from the Metro Rail project.

It remains unclear whether Los Angeles Democrats, especially in the Assembly, will support the spending plan. Among the views of Assembly Democrats:

“No one is paying attention to how L.A. is doing,” said Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica).

Assemblywoman Barbara Friedman (D-North Hollywood) said: “If there isn’t anything for L.A., most of the L.A. Democrats will hang together” by opposing the budget.

“The governor’s message to L.A. County is: ‘Drop dead,’ ” Assemblyman Louis Caldera (D-Los Angeles) said.

Throughout the budget negotiations, Los Angeles suffered because it had no representative at the Republican-dominated negotiating table in the governor’s office, and both Democratic negotiators are from the Bay Area.

Lockyer, who is from Hayward, said the state Constitution precludes the governor and Legislature from granting the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors what it most wanted--the authority to impose a half-cent sales tax increase without a vote of the people.

In the Assembly, some Los Angeles Democrats privately fumed that Assembly Democratic Leader Willie Brown failed to fight for their cause, as he split his time between attending the budget talks and running for mayor of San Francisco.

Some Assembly Democrats beyond Los Angeles also are bridling at the prospect of supporting the Republican governor’s budget. At least one won’t even be in town--Assemblyman Tom Bates (D-Berkeley). He is at a conference on the East Coast. But his aides said that in a pinch he would be available to come to the Capitol--to vote no.

Then there are the handful of lawmakers like Assemblyman Phil Isenberg (D-Sacramento) who see the budget as hopelessly in the red. He said he will refuse to vote for what he calls a sham and a fraud.

Isenberg noted that there is virtually no emergency reserve in the $56-billion spending plan to pay for calamities such as earthquakes, fires or floods, let alone a new recession that would sap state tax revenue.

“What do you call a budget that has no reserve? You call it a trick budget,” Isenberg said.

Times staff writer Dave Lesher contributed to this story.