California Is No. 1, but Bragging May Not Be in Order

It’s a dubious honor, but a new report shows that California ranks No. 1.

That is, in terms of deficit, unemployment, alcohol-related traffic deaths, sex offenders, crimes with firearms, prison spending, bomb incidents and average class size.

Those are some of the findings in a 134-page report the state Senate’s research department released Friday. The report ranks California against other states in terms of finances, health, education, crime, commerce, taxes, population and other categories.

“It is the biggest, but is it best?” asked the report ordered by Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer, D-Hayward, and Sen. Henry Mello, D-Watsonville.

“Is California a high-tax state? The rankings would suggest no,” the report said, noting that the state ranked 25th in property taxes and state and local taxes as a percentage of personal income in 1992.

But California is a high-crime state, trailing only the District of Columbia, Florida, Arizona and Louisiana in crimes per 100,000 residents in 1993, the report said.

Observers noted that California does lead in some positive categories.

“We also have more Nobel Prize laureates than any other state,” said Tim Hodson, director of the Center for California Study. “We have more scientists and engineers than any other two states combined. We have more research labs and colleges and universities than any other state.”

California’s No. 1 status isn’t surprising, Hodson said, because its population of 32 million far surpasses the 18 million in each of the next two largest states, Texas and New York, according to 1994 figures.

The statistics paint a grim picture, but Hodson believes the brunt of bad news for California has passed.

“The state may be tarnished, but it’s still golden,” said Hodson from his office at Cal State Sacramento. “It is not paradise and it is not immune from economic realities, but I think when we come out of this period we’ll be stronger.

“There was an adolescent arrogance that nothing could go wrong here, but with the L.A. riots, the fires, the floods, the earthquakes . . . we’ve become more mature,” Hodson said.

The report shows there is one prison guard for every three inmates in California, the highest ratio in the nation. Prison guards here average salaries of $37,000, higher than any other state except Alaska, which averages $42,000.

Per capita statistics show that keeping an inmate behind bars costs California about $55 per day, a fraction of what it costs in the No. 1 state--Alaska--where the bill is about $117 daily. But Alabama only spends about $22 a day.

Per student, two out of three states spend more than California does in the public schools. Reading scores for the state’s fourth-grade students are at the bottom of the list, and there are more students per classroom here than in any other state in the nation.

The report also showed the state first in the number of immigrants received annually, manufacturing employment, exports, average salaries for public college teachers and number of elderly households.

The report was compiled by Senate researchers using the most recent information available from many sources.