By Wyatt Buchanan and Marisa Lagos
The San Francisco Chronicle
SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger pledged to spare public schools, colleges and universities from the budget ax this year and proposed privatizing at least some of the state’s prisons in his final State of the State address.
In a 27-minute speech, Schwarzenegger told a joint gathering of the Assembly and Senate that although the state faces a nearly $20 billion deficit, he was drawing a line with education.
“Because our future economic well-being is so dependent upon education, I will protect education funding in this budget. And we can no longer afford to cut higher education either,” the governor said.
Schwarzenegger also called for a $500 million job-creation program, major changes in budgeting laws and in pension benefits for public employees, a push for more federal dollars and a constitutional amendment to guarantee that more money is spent on higher education than prisons.
The governor said privatizing prisons would save “billions of dollars a year” that could be used for higher education. While that idea was praised by education leaders and advocates across the state, it appears to have little support in the Legislature as Democratic leaders roundly rejected it.
Assemblywoman Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, said the idea simply does not make sense.
“He has a really good way of setting things up and saying ‘We have no choice here, and this is what we must do,’ and it’s just not true,” Evans said.
Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, chairman of the Public Safety Committee, said the governor’s “rhetoric does not match his record.”
“The prison crisis has become a state of emergency on his watch,” Leno said. “Our disinvestment in higher education and our ever greater investment in prisons has happened under his watch.”
Copyright 2010 San Francisco Chronicle