"The Difference Is Education"
And with that comment, the leader of the state Senate seemed to make it pretty clear today what's going to be at the center of budget fighting this year: funding for public schools.
Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg told Capitol reporters this afternoon that Democrats won't go along with Governor Schwarzenegger's approaches to funding schools — either in the current fiscal year or the budget year beginning July 1.
Education has been part of, but not central to, the last few days of budget fighting, which seem likely to end with the governor vetoing more than $3 billion in legislative deficit solutions.
But two things the Senate leader said today make it clear we'll soon be talking a lot more about K-12 schools and community colleges should get… both how much they should get, and where that money should come from.
First, there's the gap the vetoes will create between the total dollar amount of 2009-2010 budget fixes wanted by Schwarzenegger versus what the Legislature sent him. It appears that the current year budget deficit will only be lowered by about $200 million, down from the governor's call for $1.2 billion.
So what accounts for the $1 billion in disputed savings? "The difference is education," said Sen. Steinberg.
And on that issue, it doesn't look like Dems are budging. Almost two weeks ago, I reported for The California Report on the fight over Schwarzenegger's request to revisit the part of last July's budget deal that set the formal certification of Proposition 98 — i.e., the part of that budget deal that set the rules for what schools are receiving and how that money is being