SACRAMENTO — While they have been beating back wildfires across the state and fighting wars on two fronts overseas, the citizen soldiers of the California National Guard have also been waging a battle in the Legislature -- and losing.
For the second year in a row, state lawmakers have rebuffed the Guard's effort to win state money to help cover the cost of college for its members. State military officials say their only hope now is that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will prevail upon Democratic legislators to include money for tuition assistance in the budget that is 49 days overdue and more than $15 billion in the red.
California is the only state that gives no educational benefit to National Guard members.
Schwarzenegger has called the lack of benefits "unconscionable" and proposed spending $3.3 million this year and next to help Guard members with tuition assistance. That is enough to cover most tuition and fees at community colleges or a state university for about 2,000 people.
Democrats and Republicans in the Assembly agreed. But Democrats in the Senate scuttled a bill that would have created the program and then stripped the $3.3 million from a Democratic budget plan.
Senators said the program's cost doomed it and hundreds of other spending proposals as the state wrestles with a $15.2-billion budget gap.
"Given the budget crisis, all bills that had a substantial amount of money" attached did not pass, said Sen. Jack Scott (D-Altadena).
But some senators had concerns beyond the fiscal, said Sen. Mike Machado (D-Linden), who chairs the subcommittee that oversees National Guard funding.
He said that given how the Bush administration has been using the National Guard to augment troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, the federal government -- not the state -- should pay for expanded Guard benefits.
"I think the federalization of the Guard is putting on an undue toll," Machado said, "and I think in that case, the federal government has a greater responsibility for providing incentives for recruitment and retention."
People who join the California National Army or Air Guard typically hold full-time jobs and do military training on weekends.
They act as the state's backup force in emergencies such as natural disasters and other crises.
Last month, more than 1,000 Guard members and 17 Guard helicopters helped state and local firefighters battle wildfires. California's 21,000 Guard members have also served 27,000 deployments overseas since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Some members have been deployed several times.
