Governor Shops for Votes
As he buys school supplies, critics of Prop. 76 gather near Capitol
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday touted Proposition 76 as a move to secure stable public school funding, while his opponents argued it will take a wrecking ball to current education spending guarantees.
The debate took place 20 miles apart and across county lines, with Schwarzenegger posing with a half-dozen teachers in the checkout line of a Roseville school supply store. He whipped out a credit card to buy their students $478.02 worth of pencils and notebooks and the like - saying that the state can't and won't provide them.
"What is important is to vote yes on Proposition 76 because then they do not have to go out and buy school supplies any more, because we will do it," Schwarzenegger said, unloading a shopping cart at the GW School Supply Store while the teachers beamed.
"Because any time you get one-time money and we have good revenues, we will be able to fund school supplies and pay for all those things. ... Under the current system, we don't do that. One-time money is not being used. We use it for other things, but not for these kind of things where it ought to be used, which is for education and for school supplies."
Back at the Capitol, opponents of Proposition 76 held an impromptu sidewalk press conference across 10th Street. They said passage of the Republican governor's budget-cutting initiative - perhaps the keystone measure to his government-overhaul plan set for the Nov. 8 special election ballot - would represent a body blow to education spending provisions that voters already approved when they put Proposition 98 in place in 1988.
"If anyone tells you Proposition 76 is good for schools, they're wrong," said Bob Wells, executive director of the Association of California School Administrators and a board member of the Alliance for a Better California, which is leading the fight against Schwarzenegger's special election package. "If you look at what Proposition 76 does, it wipes out most of the voter-approved protections of Proposition 98. And in case anyone's forgotten, voters put Proposition 98 into the state constitution for a reason: They got tired of governors and legislators balancing the state budget on the backs of schoolkids."
Checkout line visuals and sound-bite politics aside, the long-distance face-off delved mostly into some of the more arcane points of Proposition 98, how Proposition 76 would affect it and whether the changes would be good or bad for public education in California.
Schwarzenegger's point with the school supplies was that under Proposition 98, legislators and governors are reluctant to put extra money into things like finger paint and poster boards and books because the law then requires that amount to be paid year after year.
If Proposition 76 passes, their thinking goes, the state would be more likely to pick up the supply tab on a one-time, year-by-year basis, without the money going into the education system's funding base and triggering spending increases in future years when the state may not have the money.
The opponents' emphasis, however, is on the whack Proposition 76 takes on school funding in the years state revenue lags.
The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office has concluded that it would result in a lower minimum funding guarantee for schools in the long term. For instance, Proposition 76 eliminates the requirement that the state eventually repay schools for revenue lost in bad economic times.
A reporter asked Schwarzenegger at the checkout stand Tuesday if he was being "disingenuous" by claiming that Proposition 76 would pay for more supplies in light of the analyst's take on the matter. The governor shot back that he was relying on an analysis by the California Taxpayers' Association that predicted a steadier, stabilized money flow under Proposition 76.
"It shows because of our stability that we create in education funding, there will actually end up being more money for education," Schwarzenegger said. "And it's true. Right now, we're taking education on a roller coaster."
Wells, the school administrators' executive director, said the real deal comes down to the repayment of the missed obligations under Proposition 98.
"He wants to be able to cut us when times are bad, with no requirements when times are good," Wells said.