Bush Spending Plan Is Called ‘Disappointment’ for California

After he was elected governor last year, Arnold Schwarzenegger said he would look to his fellow Republican, President Bush, to help California out of its budget mess.

But the budget proposal Bush sent to Congress on Monday offers a mixed bag for the state. There is more money for anti-terrorism defenses in big cities and for the prevention of wildfires. But there is no money to reimburse the state for the cost of jailing illegal immigrants who are convicted of crimes.

A spokesman for the governor called the decision to provide no funding to states for incarcerating illegal immigrants -- a move that, if unchanged by Congress, would cost California $120 million -- an “extreme disappointment.” But H.D. Palmer, deputy director of the California Department of Finance, added that Schwarzenegger would work aggressively to bring funding for the program to at least the current level.

“Californians were led to believe that maybe the [Bush] administration would care about us if we elected a Republican governor,” said Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks). “We did, and it doesn’t.”

But Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) said the president’s proposed budget was not the final word.

“We haven’t given Gov. Schwarzenegger nearly enough time to make his case,” Issa said, citing Schwarzenegger’s complaint that California receives only 77 cents back for every dollar it sends to Washington.

One Bush proposal that could bring the state added money calls for steering more homeland security funding to high-threat urban areas.

California officials have complained that under the current formula, the state received less per capita for homeland security than Wyoming. But a fight is likely in Congress, because overall federal funding for homeland security grants to local and state governments would be cut.

The proposed budget for fiscal 2005, which begins Oct. 1, also includes $23 million for deepening the main channel of Los Angeles Harbor to accommodate larger ships -- a project its supporters say is crucial to the region’s economic growth -- and $15 million for the California Federal Bay-Delta Program, which is designed to ensure the state has enough water to satisfy a growing population and to protect the environment in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

California also could receive about $250 million more for education, said Tim Ransdell, executive director of the California Institute for Federal Policy Research, a Washington-based group that examines federal issues crucial to the state’s economy. He said California also likely would benefit from increases in the Defense Department and NASA budgets.

Still, states would face a hard time holding their own under the Bush budget proposal, said Marcia Howard, director of the Federal Funds Information for States, a Washington-based organization.

The proposal that raised the most concern among California officials was the absence of any money to reimburse the state for jailing illegal immigrants.

“The cutback would hurt California far more than any other state, because an estimated 40% of the criminal aliens reside in California,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). She contended that the federal government, by failing to adequately control U.S. borders, bore some responsibility for the costs.

Schwarzenegger’s spokesman said that California expected to spend more than $700 million in the coming fiscal year on such convicts. The program to provide federal funding has bipartisan support in Congress, which provided $298 million for the effort nationwide this year.

The budget also includes $760 million to help thin national forests to reduce the threat of fires. But Feinstein expressed concern that at least some of that funding appeared to come at the cost of reduced payments to states and communities to clear brush on state and private lands.

“No one should expect a windfall from this budget,” said Rep. David Dreier (R-San Dimas), who headed Schwarzenegger’s transition team. But he added that the Bush budget was a “starting point” and expressed confidence that California’s 53-member House delegation, the biggest of any state in Congress, would provide “a strong voice in Washington for California’s needs.”