Government Programs California

Gov. Pete Wilson will go to Washington next week to lobby the Bush Administration and Congress for federal dollars to pay for services to California's burgeoning immigrant population--an obligation that he says is unfairly costing the state more than $200 million a year. The governor is scheduled to meet on Monday with White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu, Budget Director Richard A. Darman and congressional leaders, according to Wilson's press secretary, Bill Livingstone.

The Southern California Gas Co. has agreed to a tentative settlement with 89 mostly elderly people who were allegedly defrauded of $1.9 million by an investment firm that helped finance the utility's energy-saving programs in the early 1980s, attorneys said Monday. A last-minute technicality prohibited consummation of the agreement on Monday, attorneys for both sides said.

Welfare recipients' checks would be cut. Automatic cost-of-living raises for social programs would be suspended. More than 10,000 state workers may lose their jobs. From all this, you might conclude that the state budget is shrinking. But it's not. The 1991-1992 budget plan the Assembly passed Thursday would increase spending 11% over the current fiscal year, which ends June 30, according to numbers supplied by the state Finance Department.

"Tax the rich!" That phrase was the rallying cry behind a demonstration by more than 1,000 school teachers, students, public employees and others outside the state Capitol Tuesday. With the state facing a $14.3-billion deficit, opponents of further cuts in funding for schools and human service programs announced an all-out push for legislation--backed by Democrats and opposed by Republicans--that would increase income taxes for the wealthiest 1% of Californians.

State Finance Director Thomas W. Hayes on Monday confirmed reports that the state's budget deficit had increased by nearly $2 billion and could grow even larger, but said the governor would recommend no further tax increases to make up for the shortfall. That could mean even deeper cuts in services than what Gov. Pete Wilson has proposed to resolve what Hayes says is a potential $14.3-billion deficit.

You'd never guess from the outside of this old-fashioned Venice four-plex that a business is thriving behind one of the doors. It is such a tiny apartment. It is so quiet. It is naptime. But about 3:30 p.m. on any weekday, the smallest children are beginning to stir in Suzanne Butorac's living room, where they are slumbering on mats. The older ones, Vanessa and Jessie, both 5, are already up and in the bedroom playing with Nick, 4.

Each weekday at 5:40 a.m., Carol and John Ludwig load a precious cargo into one of their three vans and set off for the hourlong trip from their home in Walnut to their jobs in downtown Los Angeles. Safely stowed in the van are Mary, 2, and Mikey, 9 months, who make the 35-mile commute with their parents.

In a sharp setback for cities and counties, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday that the state government need not pay for programs it imposes on local communities that can be funded by local user fees. The justices unanimously upheld a state statute that is being used with increasing frequency by the state during lean budgetary times to finance scores of state-required local programs involving millions of dollars.

Jacquie Duerr, head of the state's tobacco control office, apologizes over the phone. The surgeon general of the United States is on the other line wanting--like everyone, it seems--to talk about California's ambitious plan to turn the state into a smoke-free mecca by the turn of the century. "We do feel that California is a petri dish for the nation," Duerr says with a sigh after the brief interruption to speak with Surgeon General Antonia Novello. "We have a lot of eyes on us.