A lawsuit filed in part by University of California students
against the governor over mid-year budget cuts may have hit a snag
as the students wait to hear if the cuts will be implemented or
not.
The lawyer representing the UC Student Association sent a letter
Monday to state Attorney General Bill Lockyer asking him to clarify
whether the state will implement mid-year budget cuts to the UC,
which include a $24 million cut to educational outreach
programs.
UCSA filed a petition in the state supreme court in January
saying Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had overstepped his bounds by
lowering the vehicle license fee by executive order the day after
he took office.
To compensate counties that had lost funds because of the
license fee decrease, Schwarzenegger ordered $148 million in
mid-year budget cuts to education, health and other services.
The state supreme court declined to hear UCSA’s case on
Feb. 18. But since the court declined to hear the case
“without prejudice,” UCSA may file the petition in a
lower court.
Since then, UCSA has heard conflicting accounts as to whether
the governor’s cuts are going forward.
An argument filed by the Attorney General’s office on
behalf of the governor on Feb. 18 urged the court not to hear the
case because the mid-year cuts “will not be made.”
But H.D. Palmer, a department of finance spokesman speaking on
behalf of the governor’s office, said the state budget
committee approved the mid-year cuts on Feb. 17 and that the cuts
were currently waiting approval from the Legislature.
Warrington Parker, the lawyer for UCSA, said until the Attorney
General clarifies the status of the cuts, the lawsuit will remain
in limbo. He said he sent the Attorney General a letter requesting
clarification before Feb. 27 to expedite the process.
“It’s pretty safe in saying we would not file a
lawsuit until we have obtained some response to the letter, or not
obtained some response to the letter,” he said.
Warrington said the cause for confusion came from a supposed
statement from the Department of Finance saying that the cuts would
be made.
UCSA and the other plaintiffs on the lawsuit want to know if
this means the cuts will be made unilaterally by the governor even
if the state Legislature does not approve them, or if the statement
is simply assuming the cuts will be approved.
In the event that the governor will act unilaterally, taking the
lawsuit to a lower court is still an option, Warrington said.
But he is not sure what, if any, action will be taken if the
Legislature does approve the cuts.
Part of UCSA’s petition argues the governor does not have
the power to make cuts without approval from the Legislature.
However, if the state budget committee had approved the cuts and
the proposal is approved by the rest of the Legislature, then it
could negate that part of the petition.
“In that situation, that changes everything,” said
Liz Geyer, executive director of UCSA.
The other plaintiffs on the lawsuit include the Equal Justice
Society, Californians for Justice and other students concerned
about the outreach program cuts.
Outreach programs through the UC system are designed to aid
schools lacking sufficient funding to prepare their students for
college. The proposed cuts would eliminate the entire budget for
the outreach programs by the 2004-2005 school year.
“We began this lawsuit because we felt that the cuts were
really traumatic to the university,” said Matt Kaczmarek,
chairman of UCSA. “Outreach tries to create through education
a level playing field for students to compete to get into the
university.”