Two Sides Move Closer on Budget

Wednesday’s education funding compromise, which commits almost $1 billion of the state’s revenues to cutting class size next year, moved the Legislature and the governor a crucial step closer to resolving the ongoing budget stalemate.

Agreement on the class size package was reached after five hours of negotiations between legislative leaders and Gov. Pete Wilson, and announced at 12:30 a.m. Wednesday.

The plan offers school districts $771 million to cut class size in the primary grades to 20 students per teacher. The state also intends to spend an additional $200 million to buy 5,000 portable classrooms to house the new classes created by the reductions, Senate budget analysts said.

“We’re going to hope that parents and teachers and school leaders will be creative in using the available money,” said Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward).

Late Wednesday, Wilson and the four top leaders of the Legislature also reached agreement on the only other outstanding issues left in the $63-billion budget--primarily funding for public safety and senior citizens.

At a news conference about 9:30 p.m., Wilson said the agreement will be relayed to a legislative conference committee Friday. Barring unexpected developments, the Legislature could begin voting on the package by Sunday.

The leaders indicated they expect their membership to agree to the package.

The agreement would drop a proposal from Wilson that would have allowed taxpayers to designate 1% of their return for public safety. As a substitute, the governor agreed to a block grant program that will provide about $150 million for local law enforcement. About a third of that would go directly to local police, with the remainder divided among prosecutors and jailers.

For senior citizens, the governor agreed to eliminate a cut he had planned to make in subsides for indigent elderly. Assembly Democratic Leader Richard Katz said the change means that a federal cost-of-living increase that was deducted from the state allocation has been restored.

Some issues--but ones that would not hold up passage of the budget--still remain. Wilson said, for example, the leaders have not agreed on bond measures that he hopes to place on the ballot this year for new prisons and water facilities. He indicated the leaders may discuss those issues next week.

Regarding schools, Democrats and public school lobbyists initially opposed Wilson’s class reduction plan, contending that the governor was not offering enough money to pay for the new teachers and classrooms the plan would require. They also argued that many schools, particularly in crowded urban districts, would not be eligible for the funds because they could not lower class size by the beginning of the school year in September.

Agreement came after the governor agreed to increase the amount he was offering by an additional $95 million and keep any unspent class reduction money in an escrow account to be used once schools are ready to lower class size.

California has been operating without a budget since Monday, the July 1 start of the fiscal year and the state constitutional deadline for having a new spending plan.

The class size reduction deal comes as officials look for ways to spend an additional $2.8 billion required to go to public schools next year under Proposition 98, the school funding initiative. California schools will be getting a record $28 billion in the new budget.

“This has been one of those dreams we’ve been talking about for years,” said California Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin. “We’ve been accused of being insane because the dollar amounts are so huge.”

Wilson initially offered to spend $678 million to lower class size in first, second and third grades. Democrats persuaded him to increase it by almost $100 million.