Small Items Add Up in Big-Money State Budget

Boosting spending for public schools, police and the elderly are all Gov. Gray Davis seems to want to talk about when it comes to the $88.1-billion budget he unveiled last week.

But buried deep within the pages of that phone-book-size document is money for hundreds of smaller proposals. Some boom with significance. Others are less grand.

One proposal devotes more than $1 million to random drug testing for state prison inmates. Another sets aside $4.7 million for new appellate courthouses in Santa Ana and Fresno.

Another is aimed at helping trucks with big loads avoid crashing into freeway overpasses by plunking down $1 million for reviews of applications for routing permits, which have been a source of trouble.

There’s one from the agency that oversees vocational nurses, who provide the state’s ailing with bedside care, to spend $27,000 on tamper-resistant, pocket-size licenses. The credit card-style licenses would replace paper ones, which are easy to alter.

Big or small, the proposals offer a glimpse of what it takes to keep the most populous state in the nation running.

“It’s my intuitive impression that California’s budget is easily the largest and most complex of any of the states, but that’s just because our state is that way,” said finance spokesman Sandy Harrison.

More than half of the budget is earmarked for public schools, colleges and universities. Raises for state employees, granted by Davis last year after former Gov. Pete Wilson blocked pay increases in his final term, will absorb a big chunk: $1.2 billion in the new fiscal year. Still, with $6 billion more in revenue this year than last, Davis has money to play with.

Realizing that California is home to the nation’s largest population of veterans, Davis wants to set aside $1.3 million so he can offer California National Guard assistance at funerals for veterans.

If Davis’ budget is approved, the California Department of Corrections will get $1.5 million to randomly test inmates’ urine samples at all state prisons, a move it says is necessary to reduce drug use throughout the prison system. Officials estimate that as many as 80% of inmates enter prison with a substance abuse problem, and that many continue to use drugs while imprisoned.

Davis’ decision to earmark the bulk of the year’s anticipated surplus for schools underscores his repeated claim that improving education is his top priority. But there are political implications in his smaller decisions, too.

Consider the $500 million that California stands to receive annually, starting in the new fiscal year, from the settlement of the national tobacco litigation.

Physicians and anti-tobacco advocates want the settlement money earmarked for health care and to combat tobacco use. Davis has balked, insisting that the money go into the general fund for use on all manner of state programs.

The decision so angered some interest groups that they are considering placing an initiative on the statewide ballot in November. The initiative would set aside the entire $500 million for particular groups and causes that would benefit from the money for the next 24 years.

Davis’ budget proposal gave them some pause. The governor granted a $55-million increase in rates paid to emergency room and trauma physicians, who long have complained about the relatively meager reimbursement they receive. He proposes to boost California’s anti-tobacco media campaign to $47 million, an increase of $25 million.

Altogether, Davis allotted about $250 million to programs advocated by groups planning the initiative. He could sweeten the deal in May, when the state gets a more accurate view of the budget surplus and the governor must revise the spending plan.

“The rationale [for the initiative] is somewhat diminished by virtue of the governor’s budget,” said Steve Thompson, chief lobbyist for the California Medical Assn., one of the main groups considering the initiative.

But Davis’ offer is about half the $500 million the health advocates believe they could get in a ballot proposal. So they plan to press ahead with the initiative, at least for now.

Not everyone is getting the goods from Davis’ budget. Though the governor said in his State of the State address that he finds high-speed rail lines “intriguing” as a tool to combat traffic congestion, he made clear when he released the budget a week later that his immediate priority is to decrease traffic snarls in busy corridors.

He plans to trim $2 million from the Highspeed Rail Authority’s budget, an amount that previously was used to prepare a business plan that is now completed. The life of the authority will end next year unless the plan, which calls for $25 million to fund the first stage of an environmental study, gains approval from the Legislature or is granted more time.

Other items touch on matters that may sound lighter but have been deemed important. Like the $447,000 for the Bureau of Barbering and Cosmetology so it can bolster its force of examiners. Or the $52,000 proposal to market a Tahoe license plate.

Public frustration with long lines at the Department of Motor Vehicles may ease a bit this spring, with a program that would allow Californians to re-register vehicles over the Internet and pay by credit card.

On more sedate matters, the budget shows how much is spent to pay down the government equivalent of mortgages, settle disputes and figure out ways to avoid them in the future.

Because California has failed to implement an automated system to collect and distribute child support payments, it must pay the federal government $205.5 million in fines. The state estimates that it will spend $26.4 million to begin developing a system.

Although the proportion of the budget devoted to retiring state debt is the smallest it has been in seven years, the state still must fork over significant sums to pay off construction of prisons, universities and other major building projects. In a year when five bond issues are scheduled to appear on the March ballot, the state will spend $2.7 billion to continue paying off bonds it previously issued. That’s five times the dollar amount of debt the state had a decade ago.

Other odds and ends include:

* Permanent funding for the Preventive Medfly Release Program and an increase of $630,000 to expand it in the Los Angeles Basin. Davis is no stranger to the pesky insect. He served as chief of staff for former Gov. Jerry Brown, whose popularity took a dive in 1981 after he hesitated to order aerial pesticide spraying to kill the flies.

* Spending $532,000 to support and upgrade the Trade and Commerce Agency’s Web sites, which according to agency officials are among the most highly visited Internet sites of any state agency. It’s estimated that in December, 50,000 people viewed half a million pages at https://commerce.ca.gov and https://gocalif.ca.gov, the trade agency’s and the Division of Tourism’s Web sites.

* And in a nod to his past job of state controller, Davis included slightly more than $1 million to boost staffing for Controller Kathleen Connell to help her return $2.6 billion in unclaimed property belonging to Californians. The money was in dormant accounts once held by banks, insurance companies, utilities, media corporations and other businesses. Connell contended that the 1999-2000 budget restricted her to spending just $15,000 to inform 5.2 million rightful owners that the state was holding their unclaimed property.

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Times staff writer Dan Morain contributed to this story.