Proposition 1B would provide $9.3 billion for California schools

A proposition on the May special election ballot would provide $9.3 billion for California schools if voters also agree to extend recent tax increases for up to two additional years.

The ballot measures are among several that were hatched when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders brokered a state budget deal in February to close a $42-billion gap.

Educators say Proposition 1B is crucial for the state’s schools, which have weathered years of funding cuts. This year alone, more than 30,000 teachers, nurses, administrators and others received preliminary layoff warnings. Their fate -- and that of the state’s 6.2 million pupils -- will rest, in part, on the ballot measure.

“That’s 6.2 million reasons why we need to support” the proposition, said David Sanchez, president of the California Teachers Assn.

Proposition 1B would send $9.3 billion to the state’s school districts and community colleges in increments, starting in the 2011-12 fiscal year, to make up for earlier cutbacks in state funding. But even if it is approved by voters, it would go into effect only if Proposition 1A also passed. That measure would create a state spending cap and a “rainy-day fund” for lean years, and would extend tax increases included in the state’s 2009 budget for up to two years beyond their current expiration in 2011.

Little organized opposition has emerged to Proposition 1B, the school funding measure. But Proposition 1A has created strange political bedfellows united in their dislike for the measure. These include labor groups that fear a cap would constrain future state spending, such as the powerful Service Employees International Union, and taxpayer groups that are against $16 billion in tax hikes.

“If they agree with us, for whatever reason, we just think that’s showing good sense,” Kris Vosburgh, executive director of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., said of the group’s union allies.

Getting the backing of the California Teachers Assn. was a shrewd move by Schwarzenegger, who was unsuccessful in 2005 when he tried to pass several ballot measures that were unanimously opposed by the state’s most powerful unions.

“Schwarzenegger learned during the special election that it’s awfully hard to pass ballot initiatives over union opposition,” said Dan Schnur, a former Republican strategist who directs the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC. “By putting 1B on the ballot, Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders split the unions right in half.”

One other wrinkle that may confuse voters is that some organizations, such as the California Federation of Teachers and the California School Boards Assn., oppose 1A but support 1B. Officials with the groups say the apparently contradictory positions are intended to show their backing for more money for schools, although not the 1A funding mechanism. Voter support of 1B also could bolster their case in a future lawsuit by showing that the electorate also supports increased school funding.

Such a lawsuit would argue that California has failed to meet the terms of Proposition 98, a 1998 ballot initiative that requires that roughly 40% of the state’s general fund be spent on education.

State Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell said the conflicting endorsements are “disingenuous.” He added that he may sue the state even if the measures are approved.

So far, the California Teachers Assn. has donated more than $5 million to the effort to pass 1B, and has started airing television and radio ads; its parent organization, the National Education Assn., has kicked in an additional $1 million, according to required campaign filings. Supporters of 1A also have raised millions. Those who oppose 1B have yet to report garnering any funds, while those against 1A have raised less than $1 million.

Vosburgh said the opposition could be outspent 20 to 1, but he thinks the combination of tax increases and what he views as hazy ballot language that misleads voters will help the cause. “The issues are so basic, we don’t think we need a lot of money to win this campaign,” he said. One game-changer could be if Republican gubernatorial candidates Meg Whitman or Steve Poizner, who have voiced opposition to some of the measures, tap their personal wealth to defeat them.

They are “probably the only two people in California who oppose the initiatives and have enough money to do something about it,” Schnur said. “The question is whether they spend that money against the ballot measures or on behalf of their own candidacies.”

Although the propositions’ opponents so far lack money, Schnur and others noted that they are gaining traction on talk radio and the Internet. That, and the likelihood that turnout for the special election will be low, also may boost the no vote. “Radio, the Internet, informal communications -- all can be very powerful factors in elections now,” said Mark Baldassare, president of the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California.

Polling by the institute in March found voters roughly equally split on 1B, with 15% undecided, but Baldassare noted that the numbers probably would change once the campaigning begins in earnest.

“For most people, when we read this proposition” to them, it was “the first time they heard about it,” he said. “It won’t be the last time.”

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seema.mehta@latimes.com