--By Assemblymember John Laird

For two weeks, six of us on the Legislature’s Budget Conference Committee met to hammer out Assembly and Senate differences on 290 specific issues in the budget. We approved a state budget that invests in the areas of education, healthcare, the environment and transportation. The budget approved by the Conference Committee does all that while it spends less than the Governor proposed, includes a larger reserve than the Governor proposed, does a better job than the Governor of reducing the so-called “out-year” deficit, and provides nearly the same amount as the Governor proposed for debt repayment.

I’m proud we delivered this budget ready for an on-time vote by the Legislature—a vote that once again didn’t happen because Republicans held it up, this time over that tried and true Republican election year issue: illegal immigration.

I am hopeful the Legislature will approve the budget crafted by the Conference Committee, which includes the following good proposals:

• Full funding of Proposition 98 for K-12 Education: approximately $1.8 billion in one-time funds and an additional $800 million in ongoing funds.
  
  
• Local Control of School Funds: a $1.15 billion block grant to be controlled by local schools, rather than the Governor's proposal for mandated spending programs.
  
  
• Access to Higher Education: planned fee increases at UC and CSU stopped, and community college fees reduced from $26 to $20 per unit beginning January 2007. Also, an increase of $29 million for UC and CSU Academic Preparation programs for low-income K-12 student outreach.
  
  
• Universal Children's Health Care: $25 million for the first step in a three-step process to provide health care to all of the estimated 800,000 uninsured California children by 2008-09.
  
  
• Foster Care: $75 million in improvements for California’s 70,000 young people in foster care.
  
  
• Parks Maintenance: $250 million as a down payment on the $1 billion backlog in deferred state parks maintenance projects.
  
  
• Transportation: $1.4 billion for Proposition 42 full funding and debt repayment to fund local streets and roads, as well as public transit. Also a rejection of the Governor’s “rip-off” of gasoline sales tax funds dedicated to local public transit and farm worker transportation.
  

While I’m disappointed the June 15 vote didn’t happen, I’m still confident we will have a budget by the July 1 start of the new fiscal year. The proposed budget invests in the core values so many of us believe in while also showing needed fiscal discipline. It’s a budget worth the wait.