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EmailJanuary 5, 2006
Gov. Schwarzenegger: "I say build it"
By Omar Medina
In his State of the State speech today, Gov. Schwarzenegger proposed some major initiatives for the State of California as it relates to education. Among these are the "construction of more than 2,000 small schools, 40,000 classrooms and modernizing another 140,000."
In terms of Higher Education the governor did not propose the construction of any new schools, but he did say that "we need new classrooms, libraries and science labs in hundreds of new buildings on our campuses."
To both of these porposals he had one thing to say: "build it."
However, the funding of his proposals would require the largest bond package in state history.
The governor also included some details regarding the budget he will be introducing next week. Among these was the elimination of the scheduled CSU fee increase scheduled for the 2006/2007 school year.
Other budget details included the immediate repayment of the entire $1.67 billion in Proposition 98 money and an automatic budget increase of $2.3 billion.
He also reminded us that California's Proposition 49 will go into effect this year and provide an additional $428 million for after-school programs.
"This will make our state the only one in the nation to offer comprehensive after-school programs" said Gov. Schwarzenegger.
The governor also proposed a one dollar an hour increase to the California minimum wage with half starting this year. If this increase occurs, it would greatly benefit many students that have minimum wage jobs.
While saying that we needed to prepare for more than half a million new students during the next ten years in our institutions of higher education, he did not propose the building of any new colleges or universities. However, he did propose the building of 2 new prisons for 83,000 new prisoners over the next ten years.
The Governor announced many other social and public works proposals. These can all be found by reading the full text of his speech.
The Republican Governor will require some major cooperation from the Democrat controlled legislature if he wants his proposals to be realized. This is likely to become complicated with Gov. Schwarzenegger coming up for re-election this November.
Democratic leaders welcomed Schwarzenegger's call for cooperation, saying they were willing to work with him in the spirit of what Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez called "principled compromise."
We'll just have to wait and see what happens.
