DISPARITY IN TECHNOLOGY FUNDING SPAWNS ACCUSATION OF PORK GRAB.

Byline: Paul Hefner Daily News Sacramento Bureau

Leave it to Sacramento politicians to squabble over the pork content of the information superhighway.

Assembly Speaker Cruz Bustamante claims two Republicans got $35 million from state bonds earmarked for pork-barrel education technology projects in San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

State Sen. Jim Brulte and Assemblyman Bill Leonard - who at the time were members of the State Allocation Board - voted for the projects with the rest of the board in September.

Brulte's district is in Riverside County. Leonard's includes - you guessed it - San Bernardino.

The board also set aside $10 million more for a group of small counties. The rest, like Los Angeles, got practically nothing, even though taxpayers statewide will be paying the bill.

Brulte and Leonard said other counties got no money because they never asked for any.

But Bustamante, D-Fresno, said the board's move ``didn't pass the smell test.''

His office released a list that showed a wide disparity in the allocation of the technology funds, which were raised by Proposition 203, a $3 billion state education bond approved by voters in 1996.

The list showed students in Los Angeles County schools getting a far smaller share than the state average of $25.20 per student. The county's 83 districts got an average of $6.74 per student, while San Bernardino got $106.15 per student.

``Basically, around this place, if you're in power, that means you have a license to shovel extra pork into your district,'' Bustamante said. ``They became ball-hogs and they rolled all the dough into their districts.''

The speaker called Wednesday for the two counties to volunteer to give up at least some of the money. He also asked the state board - now controlled by Democrats - to devise a more equitable system of doling out money for education technology.

The board agreed Wednesday to consider Bustamante's request - and to withhold technology funds for districts in the two counties for a least a month while he negotiates with local officials.

But Brulte said the board used the same process to spend the money it does for other projects: first come, first served. The board voted for the projects because they were the only three applications submitted, they said.

``There was nobody left out,'' Leonard said. ``I'm disappointed more counties didn't apply.''

He said he had nothing to do with the project proposed for his district, which would let county education officials build an Internet link with individual school systems in the area.

``I didn't call my district and say `get an application in' '' Leonard said. ``They did it all on their own.''

Ron Prescott, chief lobbyist for the Los Angeles Unified School District, said board members seemed to make up their mind early on about how to spend the money.

``It was clear we weren't going to be players,'' Prescott said. ``It was already wired.''

Bustamante said that the board should have notified local education officials that the money was available, and formally requested technology proposals before spending the money.

State allocation methods don't figure into local bond measures like the one the Los Angeles Unified put up for a vote next week.

But Bustamante said it will be difficult to convince voters to back state bonds in the future unless the funding process becomes more equitable.

``How do we go back to voters and ask for $500 million more . . . if this is the kind of shenanigans that's going to take place in our Legislature?'' he said.

Brulte said he was willing to take up Bustamante's challenge to devise a better system for spending education dollars. But he said the effort should go beyond technology - and extend to other funds where urban districts get a larger share.