ANALYSIS : GOVERNOR'S STANDS ON EDUCATION DISTORTED BY MISUNDERSTOOD LAW.

Byline: Doug Willis Associated Press 

Gov. Pete Wilson is posturing today as the chief benefactor of California education. His foes portray him as Public Enemy No. 1 to public schools.

Not surprisingly, neither description is really accurate, and the reason for those contradictions lies in more than just the normal verbal jousting between Democrats and Republicans.

A more important cause is that the constitutionally mandated procedure for allocating state funds to local schools is a hopelessly complicated process - one over which neither the governor nor Legislature have any real control or responsibility.

Wilson made a big political production last week of unveiling his revised state budget, which increases state support of local schools by $1.8 billion to a new annual level of $18.7 billion, or $4,714 per pupil.

Wilson's announcement was stretched out over four days, capped with his declaration that schools will now have the funds ``to ensure California students get the kind of education that will prepare them for the 21st century.''

But the Republican governor was only giving schools the increase mandated by the state constitution - and not a penny more.

As Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl of Santa Monica said in a Democratic response to Wilson's revised budget, ``The governor is doing nothing . . . more than obeying the law.

``So we applaud him for obeying the law,'' she added sarcastically.

The law Kuehl refers to is Proposition 98, which was placed in the state Constitution by a 1988 ballot initiative sponsored by the California Teachers Association and other advocates of increased education funds.

It guarantees local schools at least 40 percent of all state general-fund dollars, with complicated formulas to suspend that guarantee in a fiscal emergency and give automatic compensatory appropriations when the fiscal crisis is over.

It is those constitutional guarantees that compelled Wilson to allocate to local schools 60 percent of the $2.7 billion in additional tax revenues in his revised estimate last week for the 1996-97 fiscal year.

First, he revealed plans to give schools an extra $200 million for reading programs. The next day, it was $460 million more to reduce class sizes and $51 million for maintenance and safety. Day three was one-time grants of $50,000 per school. Then, finally, the entire $1.8 billion plan.

``There is no question that investing in the future of our children is the best investment that we can make,'' Wilson said. ``We are in the happy position to announce that help is on the way for schools.''

While Wilson is accused by foes of trying to take credit for popular actions that were going to take place with or without his help, it's not just political opportunism. He also is trying to counter charges that his proposed across-the-board tax cut is an attack on schools.

The basis of those charges, which Democrats have been making since Wilson first proposed his tax cut last year, is also the Proposition 98 school formula.

The phased-in tax cut Wilson is seeking would reduce state revenues by only $572 million this coming year, reducing the pool for local schools by about $340 million.

But over the following four years, the cumulative impact of Wilson's tax cuts would exceed $10 billion, reducing the guaranteed state support of local schools by $6 billion.

Democrats in both the Senate and Assembly are making defeat of Wilson's tax plan their top priority in the budget negotiations upcoming next month, and they are framing it as a choice between tax cuts for the rich and school books for children.

``This budget can be worked out fairly quickly if the governor's tax cut is off the table,'' said Assembly Democratic Leader Richard Katz of Sylmar. ``The major stumbling block continues to be the governor's tax break, which takes $6 billion from schools over the next five years.''

Wilson says that distorts the facts. He says total state revenues over the next five years will increase by $25 billion or more even with the tax cut, and that schools will get at least 40 percent of that increase.

Other Republicans also describe the protect-our-schools argument against the tax cut plan as a red herring.

``The enactment of Proposition 98 . . . in no way intended that the state would never again see a reduction in tax rates,'' said Assemblyman Jim Brulte of Rancho Cucamonga, the chief legislative author of Wilson's tax bill.

``I reject categorically the view that one can only be a friend of public education by renouncing any and every form of tax reduction, and I further reject the notion that those who support a tax cut are somehow an enemy of public schools,'' Brulte adds.

There's a good deal of political posturing and overblown rhetoric on both sides of the school debate. But this time, it's not all the fault of the politicians.

Proposition 98 succeeded in protecting schools from a disproportionate share of budget cuts, but it also put the rest of the state budget process in a straitjacket.

It's a law conceived by educators in frustration, enacted by voters largely in ignorance, and implemented with haphazard and sometimes unintended consequences.

One such consequence has been to make it even harder for voters to figure out who really deserves credit or blame for multi-billion-dollar decisions that affect every Californian.