SACRAMENTO — Although voters approved billions of dollars in new state spending in Tuesday's election, the mix of ballot measures and bond issues will only help, not cure, California's budget woes.
Though voters approved all the money issues Gov. George Deukmejian and the Legislature requested in Tuesday's election, there is a broad consensus among state officials that the money just won't stretch far enough for them to keep up with record school enrollments, overcrowded prisons, increasingly expensive health and welfare programs and the other strains of an unprecedented migration of new residents into California.
Already, in the wake of voter approval of a record $5 billion in bond measures, new bond proposals are being prepared for the November ballot to provide even more money for school and prison construction.
Proposition 111, the measure that will loosen up the spending limit and trigger a phased-in 9-cent-a-gallon gasoline tax increase, will have the most immediate impact on spending programs.
The combination of Proposition 111 and a companion measure, Proposition 108, a $1-billion mass transit bond proposal, means that an extra $950 million will be available for various transportation projects in the new budget year that begins July 1. By approving Proposition 108 and Proposition 116, a $1.99-billion rail bond issue, voters gave their approval to a transportation package that will provide at least $18.5 billion in new money for highways, rail lines and public transportation over the next 10 years.
The initial 5-cent-a-gallon increase in the gasoline tax takes effect at the gas pumps Aug. 1.
Passage of Proposition 111 and bond measures on Tuesday's ballot provided a huge psychological boost to state officials, who since January have been grappling with a plethora of budget problems.
For weeks, work on the governor's proposed $53.7-billion budget has been at a virtual standstill as state officials awaited the outcome of Tuesday's voting.
An elated Deukmejian, one of the sponsors of Proposition 111, said at a Capitol news conference Wednesday morning that the voting signaled "thumbs up" to various highway, school, prison and other building projects.
Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) predicted that the successes in the election will have a spinoff effect and "lead to successful negotiations over the state budget."