Spending Plan Offers Plenty for California

With billions of dollars in new spending flowing for everything from education to immigration reform to the high-tech industry, the $500-billion budget deal struck in Congress this week is laced with sustenance for the Golden State--even if some critics thought it wasn’t enough.

The accord’s centerpiece is $1.1 billion to hire more teachers and reduce class sizes. State education officials expect $129 million of that to go to California, which translates to salary and benefits for about 3,500 teachers in the first year. Much of that is expected to go to poor, urban schools.

That could give a boost to a popular state program begun in 1996 that limits class size from kindergarten through third grade to 20 students. The program reaches 84% of all public school children in those grades and has been lauded because it allows teachers to spend more one-on-one time with students.

But how helpful the money will be remains to be seen. Cutting class sizes is an expensive proposition that requires an army of new teachers and additional classrooms, which are in scarce supply on many urban campuses. Officials estimated that expanding the state class-size program to fourth grade could cost from $300 million to $500 million a year.

$20 Million for After-School Programs

Also, some critics complained that not a penny of the education money can be spent on new schools, a dire need in California.

For after-school programs, California could expect to get $20 million of $200 million tentatively approved, the result of a bill sponsored by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).

“There is a big victory for California in the education portion of this budget,” Boxer said.

A lucrative source of funding for California traditionally has been transportation money. This time, the troubled Metropolitan Transit Authority got $73 million, including $62 million for the North Hollywood Red Line extension; $8 million for an analysis of the Eastside and Mid-city expansions; and $3 million for buses.

The amount approved was below the $100 million originally requested by President Clinton, but well above the $30 million initially approved by the Senate.

Other transportation programs included $3.5 million for San Diego’s Mission Valley and Midcoast rail extension and $2 million for Santa Barbara electric vehicle research.

Final Vote Awaits Review

A final vote has been put off until Tuesday while the budget’s details are nailed down and reviewed by lawmakers.

Congressional aides scurried Friday to decipher legislation that will run thousands of pages once it is printed, sifting out details on how each state fared.

The agreement calls for funding increases for a variety of programs particularly important to California, but it is not yet clear exactly how much of the new money will go to the state. The overall figures include:

* A $350-million increase in funding for prevention and treatment of AIDS, with special emphasis on minority communities.

* $871 million for a summer jobs program, which helps get youth off the streets in urban areas such as Los Angeles.

* A $524-million increase for programs designed to enhance educational opportunities for Latinos.

* $585 million to reimburse states for the cost of incarcerating criminal illegal immigrants. Last year, 45% of this entire fund went to California, which has more illegal immigrants than any other state. Still, California’s share of that money has decreased as other states apply for funds, officials said.

An additional $80 million for the Customs Service and Border Patrol on the Southwest border and $10 million more for processing work by the Immigration and Naturalization Service also was included in the final agreement, some of which certainly would flow California’s way.

The deal also includes an extension of the research and development tax credit which helps fuel innovation and create jobs. Strongly supported by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and coveted by California’s leading-edge companies, the tax credit expired July 1. Under the deal, it will be reinstated retroactively, but ends June 30, 1999--sooner than the high-tech community had hoped.

In praising the tax-credit extension, Feinstein said: “Our high-tech boom over the last decade has been driven largely by business investment in cutting-edge research. . . . That has been the engine that has helped fuel innovation and job creation.”

Funding also was increased to $204 million for the Advanced Technology Program, which includes awards to develop high-risk technologies that promise significant commercial payoffs.

The deal includes $5 million for a study of reclamation options for the Salton Sea, a heavily polluted inland sea in Southern California. However, it does not include the $300 million sought by Rep. Mary Bono (R-Palm Springs) for an eventual cleanup.

Rep. Vic Fazio (D-West Sacramento) won inclusion of a provision that would delay until 2005 the phase-out of methylbromide, a fumigant that is particularly important to the state’s many growers of specialty crops.

Fazio sought the postponement of the deadline set by the Clean Air Act to bring the date in line with the deadline set by an international environmental accord so U.S. growers are not at a competitive disadvantage.

Environmentalists opposed the delay because the fumigant is an ozone-depleting substance.

Money for Logging, Land Acquisition

Other programs authorized included increased logging in a national forest north of Sacramento, $2 million for Santa Monica Mountains land acquisition and a one-year extension of the off-shore oil drilling ban.

Lawmakers who negotiated the agreement rejected a plan that would have made it easier for agricultural producers to bring as many as 500,000 foreign field hands into the United States. Critics argued that there is an oversupply of field labor.

The legislation also would restore Supplemental Security Income benefits to about 20,000 elderly and disabled immigrants--a third of them in California--cut off by the welfare overhaul of 1996. Many have been unable to acquire permanent legal residence status because of age or infirmity.

The deal left noticeably unresolved one of the most contentious issues on Capitol Hill this year, as well as one with a potentially huge impact on California--how the 2000 census will be conducted.

The agreement postpones until June 15 a final decision on whether the tally will include the use of statistical sampling--a method that could increase California’s official count and send millions more in federal dollars its way.

Times staff writers Marc Lacey and Ann L. Kim in Washington and Patrick J. McDonnell in Los Angeles contributed to this story.

* MTA’S SILVER LINING: L.A. transit officials may have $1 billion more than expected over the next six years. B1