Governor’s Spending Plan Praised, Criticized : Budget: Educators hail a 7.9% hike for schools. But county officials say welfare payment cuts would cause problems.

Gov. Pete Wilson’s proposed $60-billion state budget, which promises a 7.9% increase for public schools, was praised Friday by local educators who said it was almost too good to be true.

But county officials said the governor’s plan to slash welfare payments for the year beginning July 1 creates an administrative nightmare.

And a spokeswoman for the Ventura campus of Cal State Northridge said Wilson’s proposed 40% increase in tuition would mean that fewer women and minorities would be able to afford a college education.

Wilson, in releasing his budget late Thursday, stressed its lack of new taxes, its emphasis on educating children and the savings it offers through welfare reform.

Several local officials, however, said they were not taking his proposal as more than a starting point for debate, since it still faces a six-month journey through a hostile Democratic-controlled Legislature.

“This document is a beautiful green book almost as thick as a telephone directory, and it’s got a color picture of Gov. Wilson inside,” said Penny Bohannon, county legislative analyst. “But the whole budget is predicated on the welfare initiative passing the Legislature by March 1, and that won’t happen. Not a prayer.”

Wilson has threatened to take his welfare initiative to voters, but Bohannon said it is highly unlikely that could happen before budget approval this summer.

Bohannon said the governor’s proposals almost certainly will be scaled back and altered in many ways. “You start high and compromise somewhere in the middle,” she said.

Ken Prosser, director of business services for the county superintendent of schools, applauded the governor’s plan to boost payments to elementary and high schools and community colleges.

The 7.9% increase would more than offset a projected 3.5% jump in enrollment and would provide a 1.5% cost-of-living increase--a benefit denied other state-funded programs.

“That’s great,” Prosser said. “But you’ll find that most school administrators are not going to get real excited about what the governor has said right now. . . . Everything said between now and July is just speculation.”

Even with the boost that Wilson proposes, school districts “are still looking toward a very lean year next year,” Prosser added.

Assemblyman Jack O’Connell (D-Carpinteria) was less skeptical about legislative approval of Wilson’s school-funding program. O’Connell, a key opposition leader, said the Republican governor has embraced the Democrats’ platform and will receive broad support as a result.

“It’s a very good beginning, and I hope it’s the beginning and the end,” O’Connell said.

The assemblyman said he is also sure that Wilson will gain bipartisan support for some reduction in welfare payments.

The governor has proposed cutting welfare grants by 10%, then another 15% after six months if the family receiving welfare includes an adult able to work.

“I think there will be some reform in the welfare system,” O’Connell said, but only after Wilson’s complex system of deductions and incentives is streamlined.

Barbara Fitzgerald, a county welfare administrator, said Wilson’s proposal “is a nightmare for us.”

Eligibility workers already have a three-month backlog in processing new claims, and Wilson’s system would create more delays because of varied payment schedules and tracking requirements, Fitzgerald said.

Monitoring of some provisions also would be impossible without many more workers, Fitzgerald said. For instance, Wilson proposes a $50 monthly incentive for teen-agers to stay in school, but it would be enormously time-consuming to double-check attendance, she said.

The proposed large cuts in welfare payments also would force poor families to migrate from urban areas such as Ventura and Los Angeles counties, because they could no longer afford rent, she said. Additional homelessness, mental illness and crime would result, she predicted.

Joyce Kennedy, director of Cal State Northridge’s Ventura campus, said poor students also would be hardest hit at the 1,200-student campus.

Wilson’s proposed 40% tuition increase is on top of a 20% increase last year, Kennedy said. A full-time student who paid $902 a year ago would now have to pay $1,580, she said.

“It will have a very serious impact, I’m afraid” she said. “Many of these students are single women who are heads of households. They hold two or three jobs and are just making it now. My heart aches for them.”

Other areas--especially courts and health care--could be hit hard in Wilson’s budget, county Chief Administrative Officer Richard Wittenberg said.

“I’m sympathetic with what (Wilson) had to do, and would probably have done some of the same things,” Wittenberg said. “But it’s harmful because he’s hitting us at a time when our revenues are already evaporating.”

For instance, the governor’s budget allows Medi-Cal to pay for hospital stays up to 60 days, but counties would have to pay the bill of indigent patients after that, Wittenberg said.

Also, the state had promised to increase its payments for county courts by 5% next year, but no increase is proposed, he said.

The county will be able to absorb the cuts because supervisors have imposed a hiring freeze and trimmed most department budgets about 10% over the past year, Wittenberg said.

Under the Wilson budget, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy would receive $10 million from an earlier bond measure. The money would go to entertainer Bob Hope to help close a deal that turns over 10,400 acres of mountain property in Ventura and Los Angeles counties to park agencies.

Wilson also repeated Thursday a pledge to include $48 million for the conservancy in a $628-million bond measure planned for the June ballot. Wilson said the funds would be used to purchase a wildlife corridor linking the Santa Monica Mountains, the Simi Hills of eastern Ventura County and the Santa Susana Mountains.

Citing the tight budget situation, Joseph T. Edmiston, the conservancy’s executive director, said that “under the circumstances, we got treated fairly.”

The budget also includes $15 million for construction at Cal State Northridge, where many Ventura County students attend.

Responses to the Budget Education: “You’ll find that most school administrators are not going to get real excited about what the governor has said right now. . . . Everything said between now and July is just speculation.”

Ken Prosser

Director of business services

for the county superintendent of schools

Welfare reform: Wilson’s proposal “is a nightmare for us.”

Barbara Fitzgerald

A county welfare administrator

Courts and health care: “It’s harmful because he’s hitting us at a time when our revenues are already evaporating.”

Richard Wittenberg

County chief administrative officer

Chances of passage: “The whole budget is predicated on the welfare initiative passing the Legislature by March 1, and that won’t happen. Not a prayer.”

Penny Bohannon

County legislative analyst