Officials Launch Salvos at Gov.’s School Budget

A coalition of state school and elected officials have launched a campaign against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s education budget proposals in the hopes of enlisting families and others in a fight to reverse the public school spending plan.

State Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell and Treasurer Phil Angelides, who are leading the effort, blasted several aspects of Schwarzenegger’s 2005-2006 proposed budget at a news conference at a Burbank school. But they reserved their strongest criticism for the governor’s decision to renege on a well-publicized promise last year to spare schools further cuts.

“He’s breaking his promise, breaking his word,” O’Connell said as he, Angelides and other education leaders crowded into the sun-splashed library at Bret Harte Elementary School. “How does that look to the students of this state?”

O’Connell referred to last year’s complicated budget-balancing deal in which the governor obtained the agreement of education leaders to withhold about $2 billion in state funds that were due schools under Proposition 98, which was approved by voters in 1988 to guarantee school funding formulas. The governor promised that he would reinstate Proposition 98’s provisions the following year and would not tamper with it again.

Instead, he unveiled a proposed budget last week that again would withhold the guaranteed funds from schools and announced that he would seek voter permission to amend Proposition 98. His proposals infuriated education leaders and legislators who had agreed to last year’s deal.

Although the governor’s proposed budget calls for a $2.9-billion increase in school spending, his budget spokesman has said, it would withhold $2.3 billion that school districts were owed under Proposition 98. The governor also wants local districts to pick up the nearly $500 million that the state contributes to teacher retirement funds.

Los Angeles Unified School District officials have begun identifying how they might deal with the governor’s proposals. The Board of Education on Tuesday approved a plan by Supt. Roy Romer to make about $168 million in cuts next year. At the same time, board members said, they are committed to giving the district’s 45,000 teachers pay raises next year, thus assuring that they will have to find more budget cuts.

Angelides, a Democrat who is considering running for governor next year, also criticized Republican Schwarzenegger for crafting a budget that relies on an additional $6 billion in borrowed funds. Angelides said that such a move would further threaten the state’s finances for years to come.

H.D. Palmer, deputy director of the state Department of Finance and Schwarzenegger’s spokesman on budget matters, said state spending on schools and community colleges would increase by 7.1%, while spending overall would increase by 4.2%. Revenues are expected to increase by 6.8%, Palmer said.

He added that the governor did the best he could for schools without gutting health and human services and other key programs at a time when the state needs to close a $8.5-billion budget gap.

The visit to Bret Harte Elementary was part of a campaign that O’Connell and Angelides kicked off in Northern California last week as they vowed to take their case directly to voters statewide. Joined by representatives of the state PTA and the California School Boards Assn., Angelides and O’Connell used charts to present their case to an audience of parents, teachers and fourth- and fifth-graders. The two officials also spoke at a San Diego County school later Tuesday.

The state’s education leaders are banking on voters’ past support for schools -- as shown by their approval of Proposition 98 and scores of state and local school facilities bond measures -- to help pressure the governor.

The challenges facing the officials are to clearly explain the state’s complicated public school financing system and to demonstrate a link between public schools’ generally poor performance and its slide in school funding when compared with other states.

They also must find ways to thwart a popular governor on education spending.

“The governor has made his choice,” Angelides said

“The only way he will turn around is if the people rise up,” he said.

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Times staff writer Cara Mia DiMassa contributed to this report.