Assembly Pressed to Put $3-Billion School Bond on Ballot : Funding: Education lobby applies pressure. Bill is stalled as GOP tries to attach amendment revising a wage law.

Education lobbyists attempted Thursday to increase pressure on the Assembly to authorize a statewide vote on a $3-billion school construction bond, while Assembly leaders continued their yearlong political wrangling.

The state Senate last month approved legislation to place the $3-billion school construction bond on the March, 1996, ballot. But the legislation has stalled in the Assembly, where Republicans are trying to attach an amendment that would limit wages paid to construction workers on tax-financed school projects.

The effort is part of a continuing Republican attempt to scale back California’s strong so-called prevailing wage law, which requires that government agencies pay top union wages on construction jobs.

“The consensus among the education community is that we are dealing with Croatians and Serbians,” said Owen Waters, lobbyist for the California Teachers Assn., one of the main proponents of the school bond. “We are going to lose. They are going to kill this.”

Waters charged that the bond measure is “being held hostage” by Assembly Republicans over the prevailing wage issue--even though most of the bond money would go to schools in GOP strongholds.

Assembly Republican Leader Curt Pringle of Garden Grove called Waters’ claim that the measure is being held hostage “untrue.” Pringle said Republicans want changes in the prevailing wage law, but also support school construction.

“Is that [prevailing wage language] a requirement for the bill passing? I don’t think so,” Pringle said.

Gov. Pete Wilson already has signed legislation placing a separate $2-billion bond on the March ballot to finance earthquake reinforcements for California freeways.

Pringle said the school bond could be linked to a Wilson Administration proposal to place a third bond on the ballot--a $2-billion prison construction measure.

But Democrats and school lobbyists fear that voters would turn down what would be a combined $7-billion package of bonds, concluding that the state would be placed too deeply in debt.

California already spends 5.4% of its general tax revenue to pay off debt from past bond measures--above the 5% that many officials believe is prudent.

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For the school bond to be placed on the March ballot, the Assembly must approve it by a two-thirds vote, a major hurdle in the closely divided and contentious Assembly.

Democrats hope to keep the education lobby, a major source of campaign money, happy by getting the bond on the ballot. However, Democrats have no desire to damage their close ties to organized labor by allowing the prevailing wage law to be weakened.

The school bond proposal provides $975 million for new classrooms and remodeling old classrooms at University of California and California State University campuses, and $2.025 billion for elementary and high schools.

Of that $2 billion, $1.4 billion already is earmarked.

Adding to the pressure on Republicans to support the measure, a coalition of the teachers union, school boards and school administrators circulated lists detailing how much school construction money each Assembly district would receive if the bond wins voter approval.

The breakdown shows that schools in Assembly districts held by Republican lawmakers would receive 62% of the money. Republicans generally hold seats in growing suburban and rural areas of the state.

“They undermine their own constituents’ interests,” Waters said. “It is absolutely stupid politics.”

The school bond could be heard in the Assembly Appropriations Committee next week. Appropriations Chairman Charles S. Poochigian (R-Fresno) said a decision must await discussions among legislative leaders and Wilson.

“This is very fluid,” Poochigian said.

Wilson is due to return to Sacramento today after campaigning out of the state for the presidency. He has not studied the school bond proposal, said his spokesman, Paul Kranhold.