JANE LEE
Sports Assistant
California’s borrowing costs continue to climb, leaving less money to spend on schools, roads and other projects.
In response, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is pitching Proposition 76, which would impose new spending controls to get a handle on rising debt.
This measure would make major changes to California’s constitution relating to the state budget.
It would create an additional state spending limit, grant Schwarzenegger new power to unilaterally reduce state spending and revise key provisions in the California constitution to school and community college funding.
If passed, California residents could expect to see a likely reduction in spending over time relative to current law. These reductions could shift costs to local governments.
Proponents say the proposition could also result in a smoother pattern of state spending and a different mix of state expenditures.
The provisions changing school funding formulas would make school funding more subject to annual decisions of state policymakers and less affected by a constitutional funding guarantee.
There are many, however, who oppose these limits.
The California State Parent Teacher’s Association opposes the measure because it focuses on provisions that would result in major cuts to school funding, according to its official site.
Kathy Wisnicki, school board member for Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, said she opposes Prop 76.
“This could possibly be the worst thing to happen to education in my lifetime,” Wisnicki said. “Prop. 76 gives the governor power to cut the budget at any time during the school year.”
She said the schools don’t have enough money as it is.
“It’s overriding Prop. 98,” she said, which was passed in 1988, guaranteeing that 40 percent of the state budget go to education.
The Web site added that Proposition 76 would reduce the long-term Proposition 98 spending guarantee by $4 billion per year.
The proposal would eliminate the state’s ability to adjust K-12 education funding in difficult fiscal years and later restore that funding, they say.
Also, it would further specify that the funds owed to schools in the state budget would never be repaid.
However, supporters of the proposition believe it to be a modest attempt to keep the state from spending more money than it takes in.
In his January State of the State address, Schwarzenegger said, “We don’t have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem. In fact, the way the formulas now work, we will never catch up.
“No matter how well we do, the current system is programmed to spend even more. It is on automatic pilot. It is accountable to no one.”
With the proposition in effect, the state would be able to raise taxes or fees and immediately use the proceeds during the periods of revenue weakness.
However, the state would not be able to immediately use the proceeds if spending was already at the limit.
It would eventually be able to use new tax proceeds as the impact of the tax increase worked its way into the new spending limit’s adjustment factors over several years.
11-03-2005