A Focus on Schools, Families, the Surplus

The 120 members of California’s Legislature have been sworn in and now my colleagues and I have our work cut out for us this term. We have to work to improve education, protect working families and return the surplus to them.

Public education must be our top fiscal priority. State education funding still varies from district to district, with rural districts such as Oxnard and Conejo Valley receiving much less than urban districts such as Los Angeles and San Francisco. Ventura County schools should receive their fair share of education dollars, without strings attached and subject to local control.

School construction is an important area neglected over the past few years. We should spend some of the projected $10-billion surplus on school construction so that the new and remodeled schools would be paid for the day they open. This would be better than again spending our record surplus on growing government and putting an expensive school bond on the ballot. The $9.3-billion school bond passed in 1998 will cost California taxpayers $15.2 billion over the next 25 years, and another bond of equal size has been proposed for this year. We need to educate our children, but we should not burden them with paying for the schools they attended.

Protecting California’s families is very important. Although legislators have have worked hard over the past few years to make sure criminals serve their time, we must also close the remaining loopholes that allow child molesters and others to gain early release.

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Many of our state’s crime labs have been neglected in recent years, and they need to be brought up to state standards. It is important that we protect Californians by making sure that our crime investigation system and facilities are second to none.

Returning some of our $10-billion budget surplus to California’s working families is another top priority of mine. The sixth consecutive enormous surplus is an indication that California is taxing too much, more than even the Legislature has planned to spend.

One way to help is to end the double tax on gasoline, immediately reducing the cost of gas by 15 cents per gallon. Currently, California drivers pay sales tax on both the cost of the gasoline and on the state and federal excise taxes. Under my proposal, the sales tax would not be collected on gasoline, saving drivers about 15 cents a gallon.

When I began my crusade against the double taxation of gasoline two years ago, none of the gas tax went to road construction. My colleagues and I outlined a plan that would provide at least $75 billion in infrastructure funding over the next 20 years. Gov. Gray Davis included some of the ideas in his budget plan last year, but not enough of them.

Californians pay the gas tax when they fill up their cars; if that money does not go to roads, it should stay in their pockets.

This year, the Legislature should keep the promise it made back in 1991, when it passed an $8-billion “temporary” tax package to be rolled back when the state had a surplus. For the past five years, the state has had huge surpluses, yet the Legislature has grown government instead of keeping its 1991 promise.

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We must give our local governments permanent relief so they can continue to provide critical services while planning for the future. Our large surplus provides an opportunity to restore funding to California’s cities, counties and special districts taken by the Legislature in 1991. The current surplus will only grow--the 2000-01 budget was projected last January to total $88 billion, but when passed in June it totaled more than $100 billion. This time of plenty is the perfect time to set aside reserve funds for an economic downturn.

In 1991, the Legislature raised taxes and cut funding to local government to balance the budget in a horrible economic year. This time, we need to plan for the future and set aside reserve funds now.

My colleagues in the Legislature and I have an opportunity and a duty to this year take meaningful steps to improve public education, protect California families and return money to the hard-working families of Ventura County. It is important that we do not squander this opportunity to invest in our families, schools and roads.