Wilson Offers Compromise on Aid for County

Gov. Pete Wilson, trying to end the state budget impasse, was working late Tuesday toward a compromise with Los Angeles Democrats, who were holding up the spending plan until their financially strapped county got relief.

Wilson’s aides said late Tuesday that the governor was planning to veto legislation passed last weekend that sought to give Los Angeles County the option of taking $75 million a year for the next five years from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

But the governor offered to let Los Angeles County take $50 million from the MTA for one year for county operations. Assembly Democrats were considering the offer, but with California heading into its second month without a budget, pressure was building on them to accept it.

The offer also includes aid for bankrupt Orange County. Wilson pledged to sign legislation permitting Orange County to take $70 million a year for the next 15 years from its mass transit system to help meet its obligations.

“This is an effort to unstick what’s stuck,” said Wilson spokeswoman Leslie Goodman. “Now the question is, ‘Are they going to move?’ ”

By Tuesday night, Assembly leaders were preparing for a final budget showdown. They had locked most members in the chambers earlier in the day, but let them take a dinner break. They returned at 9 p.m., and Speaker Doris Allen (R-Cypress) said she intended to reach a resolution before breaking.

“We’re going to stay until it gets done,” said Allen, adding that at some point during the night she intended to put the budget and related bills that implement it to a vote. “It could be quite late.”

Wilson, who canceled plans to attend the national governors convention this week in Vermont, was hoping to hit the campaign trail in the Northeast this weekend.

Toward that end, the Republican governor called Assembly Democratic Leader Willie Brown with the $50-million offer for the Los Angeles delegation late Tuesday.

“There are the votes to put the budget out,” one Northern California Democratic assemblywoman said.

Throughout Tuesday, Democrats from outside Los Angeles were sticking by their Southern California colleagues. But the resolve of some Assembly Democrats weakened after they heard reports that the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors appeared to be lukewarm on accepting the transportation money transfer. The board voted 3 to 0 with two supervisors abstaining on the offer.

“It undermines what the Los Angeles County delegation was trying to do,” Assemblyman Louis Caldera (D-Los Angeles) said. “The rug was pulled out from under us.”

The state Senate passed the budget Saturday by a 31-9 vote, four more than the minimum required. But in the fractious Assembly, the brinkmanship continued, 32 days after the July 1 constitutional deadline for approving the budget. The Assembly has twice voted on the budget and rejected it.

Twelve of 16 Assembly Democrats from Los Angeles County held a press conference to restate their position that Wilson should help the county as part of the state budget deal.

“Los Angeles County wants the ability to solve their problem,” said Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar). “All they are asking is for the state to get out of the way.”

The Los Angeles legislators are pressing Wilson to sign the bill passed Saturday that would let Los Angeles County use for five years $75 million a year in sales tax revenue earmarked for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

The bill also would permit Orange County to use the $70 million a year in transportation money for 15 years. In a rare alliance with Los Angeles Democrats, Orange County Republican Assemblyman Curt Pringle was trying to persuade Wilson to sign the bill--although Speaker Allen urged Wilson to veto it.

For several days now, the Los Angeles Democratic delegation had been insisting that the $75 million is needed to help keep the county’s health care system operating.

But disagreements among Los Angeles County supervisors over how to use the money hampered their efforts, as did Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, who is asking Wilson to veto the bill.

“What’s holding it up is the fact that Los Angeles seems to be so badly split,” Wilson said in a radio interview. “This is a bill to which the transportation authorities and Mayor Riordan are violently objecting. . . . I don’t have any particular feeling about the bill one way or the other.”

Until Tuesday’s press conference, Los Angeles Democrats did not say how much money they wanted for the troubled county, largely because county officials did not come to the Capitol with their plea for help until July, when the budget was all but settled.

But on Tuesday, Katz and Assemblywoman Marguerite Archie-Hudson (D-Los Angeles) said the county needs authority to raise $379 million to $400 million this fiscal year--sums that seem unlikely.

To get that money, they suggested again that the county be allowed to levy a “tipplers’ tax” on alcohol served at bars and restaurants. But none of them realistically expect such legislation to pass, given that it received a mere 15 votes on Saturday, far short of the 41 needed.

Katz met with Wilson’s aides during the day.

The lower house did take a major step toward approving the budget package Monday when 54 Democrats and Republicans approved a related measure that contains $395 million in welfare cuts the governor wanted.

While Los Angeles lawmakers continue to hold up the budget, Wilson is insisting that the Assembly pass one of the most contentious budget-related bills, which cuts $58 million used to provide prenatal care for illegal immigrants.

Wilson has linked the cut in aid to pregnant illegal immigrants to one of his pet budget-related bills, a measure providing $20 million in health care for poor children who are legal residents, but qualify for no other health care.

Some Republican moderates oppose the cut in prenatal services for illegal immigrants. But the main opposition comes from Democrats.

Caldera called the Wilson-backed child health care measure “another attempt to provide services that exclude children who are undocumented,” and “one of the most political bills of all.”

But Assemblyman David Knowles (R-Placerville) called for an end to “state-only giveaway programs to what many refer to as illegal intruders on our soil.”

Adding to the state’s budget problem, Superior Court Judge James T. Ford of Sacramento issued a temporary restraining order late Tuesday barring the state from moving $63 million from tobacco tax revenue into general health care. The money was set aside by Proposition 99 for specific anti-tobacco programs and research.

The transfer was a part of the budget deal, raising the possibility that the spending plan is out of balance even before it is adopted.

The state will be back in court next month on the issue. But Frederic Woocher, attorney for Americans for Nonsmokers Rights, which brought the suit, noted that a similar transfer by the state last year failed.