Governor Defends Gas Tax Split : Highways: Deukmejian vows to resist efforts to get more money from the proposed levy for the north. He says that those doing the complaining are simply misinformed.

SACRAMENTO —  Setting up a possible confrontation with Northern California lawmakers, Gov. George Deukmejian vowed Thursday to oppose any attempt to distribute more revenue from a proposed gasoline tax increase to highways in the north.

Deukmejian said legislators who have complained recently that Southern California would take too big a share of the proceeds from the new tax are simply mistaken. Lawmakers airing that complaint have included Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco).

Said Deukmejian: “We just feel . . . that they (the lawmakers) at this point are operating under some misunderstanding, some misinformation, and we’re confident that can be clarified to their satisfaction.”

Deukmejian, who is leading a campaign to win voter approval in June of proposed modifications in a state spending limit and a 9-cents-per-gallon gasoline tax increase, said he will attempt at meetings next week to dissuade dissident Northern Californians from opposing the measures.

Deukmejian commented as he emerged from a meeting with a steering committee that is helping him devise strategy for the campaign.

In recent weeks, the spending limit proposal and the tax measure have come under criticism from the California Teachers Assn., a developers’ group and some Northern California lawmakers who complained that revenues from the new tax would not be split fairly between the state’s northern and southern regions.

They said Deukmejian and legislative leaders had agreed when they approved the ballot measure and accompanying legislation last year that the tax proceeds would be split so that the north would get 40% and the south 60%. But after examining the proposals more closely, they argued that Southern California would get more than a 60% share of the money for new highways and mass transit.

The Northern California lawmakers gained a powerful ally earlier this week when Brown, one of the chief backers of the tax increase-spending limit proposal, added his voice to the dissent.

While promising that he would continue to support the gas tax increase, Brown nevertheless called for new legislation that would give Northern California more money for highway construction and mass transit.

On Thursday, he said a change in the distribution of the money is essential if the proposal is to win the approval of Northern California voters.

“I am certain that an effort must be made to remove the specter that we are somehow pushing something that will cause a maldistribution of resources between the north and the south in the road program,” Brown said.

But Deukmejian said that while Southern California may be in line for a bigger share of the revenue for some highway construction and mass transit, the northern part of the state would get more money for road rehabilitation and other programs.

“The total amount of money that will be going for transportation . . . will be divided on a 60-40 basis and you cannot try to separate each individual program and say each individual program is 60-40,” he said.

Deukmejian said he hoped to win over the Northern California lawmakers but that, if they continue their dissent, he will use the campaign to try to rebut them.

“If somebody is wrong and they go out and give misinformation, all we can do . . . is go out and explain they are wrong in their interpretation of the law,” he said.

The gasoline tax increase would help finance a 10-year, $18.5-billion transportation improvement program that, among other things, provides for new highway construction, expansion of mass transit systems and rehabilitation of existing roads.