Measures fail, plans sought

Get ready for deep cuts in public services.

Sen. Tom Harman and Assemblyman Jim Silva aren’t sure where those cuts will appear, but they’re confident that they will happen now that voters have rejected Tuesday’s propositions to cover at least some of the state’s budget maw.

And that heightens the anxiety of local school leaders.

“We’re simply going to have to go back and take a look at what the state’s income is, where the expenses are coming from and balance them. It’s as simple as that,” Harman said. “You can’t spend more than what you have. That’s what Mom and Dad do. They sit down around the kitchen table during a recession and say, ‘We’ll just have to live within our means.’ We haven’t been doing that.”

Tuesday’s rebuke of the budget plan at the polls marked a day of reckoning, Silva said.

“The sense that I get today is that tax increases are no longer on the table,” Silva said.

The Democrats in the majority will have to turn to slashing spending, he added.

“The people have spoken. There’s just a point in time where we have to say we can’t raise any more revenue with taxes. We’ll just have to live within our means,” Silva said.

Three months after finally balancing a $42-billion deficit, the state is still staring down a $21.3-billion shortfall, following voters’ decision in the special election not to approve several propositions meant to close at least some of the gap. Even if voters approved the propositions the state still had to figure out a way to paper over a $15-billion deficit.

Five of the state’s budget reform measures, which would have borrowed to make delayed payments to schools, cap state spending and other measures, were crushed in Tuesday’s special election.

“These results certainly were not unexpected, based on the original polls,” Huntington Beach City School District Board President Rosemary Saylor said.

“So along with probably all the other districts in the state, we will just sadly be moving forward with many cuts.”

Saylor said her district has several plans in place to cover contingencies, and is now waiting on the state’s May budget revision.

Bonnie Castrey, president of the Huntington Beach Union High School District Board, was on her way to Sacramento on Wednesday morning to lobby for education.

Turnout was low statewide; in Huntington Beach, the residents who vote at Hope Chapel on Lake Street had the lowest turnout citywide this election — with just 11.64% of voters showing up at the polls.

By comparison, the Huntington Landmark clubhouse polling place on Oakridge Lane saw 46.10% of its registered voters cast a ballot.

At the First United Methodist Church polling place on Delaware Street, church members set up a table with treats such as coffee, doughnuts, lemonade and fruit for voters.

Volunteer Coordinator Marge Mitchell said the turnout was nothing compared to the November election, but she and her friends still spent the day outdoors, ministering to voters, after setting up the coffee machine at 6 a.m.

“When the neighborhood comes to our house, we want to show them hospitality. It’s become a really big joint effort,” Mitchell said. “We have had people stop in for prayer. You never know how it’s going to touch somebody.”

The single proposition to pass Tuesday, which restricts pay increases to state leaders in hard budgetary times, was only put on the ballot as a concession to a Republican state senator who held out during the original budget talks. Republicans, although in the minority, have clout because the budget can’t be approved without a two-thirds majority voting yes.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, seemingly aware that the measures would fail, released his May Revise last week, which calls for up to $5.4 billion in additional education cuts.

“Whatever happens, it’s not going to be good,” Saylor said. “It’s going to be worse before it gets worse.”

The governor has also warned of suspending payments to California’s cities. Efforts to reach city officials for comment on that scenario were unsuccessful Wednesday.

Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, who is running to unseat U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, and Harman said they were willing to consider Schwarzenegger’s proposed sale of the Orange County fairgrounds if it made sense and could preserve the fair, but Silva’s against it.

DeVore, though, envisions a doomsday scenario for the GOP in which the Democrats change the law to approve budgets with a simple majority instead of the two-thirds majority required now. DeVore predicts Democratic state lawmakers will initially move to “punish” voters with draconian cuts in public service.

“You’ll see massive cuts in programs voters care about such as education, health care to the aged and indigent,” he said. “They’ll say, ‘Look, you had this temper tantrum and voted against all these extra billions to play with so we’ll punish you and the Republicans rather than reform government and live within our means.’”

But union leaders “will pull them from the brink” and nudge the Democrats to require just a simple majority for budget approval. This will have a 50-50 chance of surviving a legal challenge, DeVore said.

Silva argued that state lawmakers have to begin hacking away at the bureaucracy. He feels there’s enough waste in the system to cover a significant portion of the deficit. Then state lawmakers will have to prioritize spending.

Public safety, education, health, transportation and water are the state’s main responsibilities, Silva said. Secondary to that is maintaining the state’s beaches and parks.

“Then you go into social programs. It’s nice to have all these social programs, but if you can’t afford them then you have to cut them out,” Silva said. “People who work should live better than the people who don’t work.”

An obvious target will be before- and after-school programs, Silva said. Another one would be social programs for people living here illegally, he added.

Silva believes the political will to do this is there now.

“It is very realistic now because the money is just not there. This is not rhetoric,” Silva said. “Cuts will have to be made.”