Once a Friend, She Is Now Viewed as an Enemy : Budget: DiMarco, Wilson’s education czar who once fought against school cuts, is under fire for backing funding slashes.

Once upon a time, Maureen DiMarco prowled the hallways of the state Capitol, battling then-Gov. George Deukmejian’s attempts to cut $2 billion from school funding.

What a difference three years make.

Today, the former PTA mom and ex-president of the Garden Grove school board is Gov. Pete Wilson’s education czar, caught in the eye of the statewide budget storm. She is also a vocal defender of this governor’s plan to cut more than $1 billion from the education budget he himself proposed in January, a move that many educators fear will damage the quality of public education in California.

In one of his first acts in office, Wilson reached across party lines to DiMarco--a Democrat known as a tireless advocate for children during two decades of service in school administration--to appoint her the state’s first secretary of child development and education.

But her appointment coincided with a recession that has driven California into its deepest budget crisis. These days, the woman who once joined with state schools Supt. Bill Honig to craft education reforms and school-funding guarantees must listen as Honig lambastes her new boss’ school spending cuts as “hypocritical” and “anti-child.”

While many praise DiMarco’s intelligence and competence, and many school administrators acknowledge that she and Wilson have little choice but to produce a bare-bones school funding plan, some of DiMarco’s critics feel she is not the friend to education that she used to be.

As president of the California School Boards Assn., DiMarco fought to wring as many school dollars from the state budget as she could. Now she jokes to a colleague that, in the eyes of the education Establishment, she must be “the most hated woman in California” because Wilson’s super-lean budget proposals have left school districts screaming for help.

However, DiMarco, 44, has little time to mull over such things as her popularity among educators. Carrying her portable phone, she wears out the heels of a pair of shoes each week trudging to meetings in her office, the Department of Finance and Wilson’s office in the Capitol. She swigs diet cola and smokes too many cigarettes, deflecting stress with a withering sense of humor.

This is also the woman whose friends invariably describe in terms of duality: idealistic but practical, tough but sensitive. On a flight home to Orange County in June to resign her seat on the Garden Grove school board, she could not help but weep as she rehearsed her farewell speech, much to the dismay of the passenger next to her. With effort, she managed to avoid the tears when she addressed the board.

When she pauses to talk about her job, DiMarco repels criticism with utter conviction that despite California’s fiscal troubles, she and Wilson are still doing a good job ensuring a future that includes quality education. She notes that other areas of the budget, such as health and welfare, have been hit much harder than the schools.

“Schools are far and away our No. 1 priority,” she said.

DiMarco insisted that Wilson’s newest budget proposal will ensure that schools get more money this fall than they did last year. But a powerful education coalition is already opposing the plan, contending that it actually reduces the level of guaranteed state funding for schools in years to come.

Honig says he still likes and gets along with DiMarco, but he compares her to a lawyer who “buys the client’s argument with as much force as she can.”

Out of loyalty to Wilson, Honig says, DiMarco has “convinced herself she is right” about budget proposals that would be “extremely harmful for schools.”

“If somebody put me in the position of having to go out and advocate $2 billion worth of cuts (as Wilson’s July budget proposal did), I couldn’t do that,” Honig said.

“I think it’s wrong,” he said. “She was always for full school funding and against school cuts, and now she’s trying to justify them, saying there is no choice and over the long haul, schools will recover. That’s ridiculous.”

A longtime observer of education policy debates in Sacramento takes an even harsher view. He said he had long considered DiMarco an able, dedicated advocate for children, but now believes that she “isn’t strong enough” to maintain and fight for her views in the divisive, dollar-driven world of state politics.

“She’s dropped awfully quickly her vision and her commitment to children,” he said.

DiMarco stoutly maintains that her devotion to the needs of California schoolchildren is as intense as ever. She said she would quit her job before advocating school funding levels that would be harmful to students.

“I don’t have a conscience problem,” she said. “I have no problem sleeping at night.”

She has told colleagues she is frustrated that few people seem to realize that her new job requires her to balance children’s educational needs against their needs for other things, like access to medical care and parental earnings that put food on the table.

“She feels bad because she has been on the other side, where your job is to get everything you can for your district,” said Scott Plotkin, who worked closely with DiMarco in his post as president of the California School Boards Assn. DiMarco held that position in 1990.

Many of DiMarco’s colleagues echoed the view that she is idealistic and passionate about the well-being and education of children, but also realistic enough to make clear-eyed judgments about what is required to make the best of a bad financial situation.

Garden Grove schools Supt. Ed Dundon, who has known DiMarco for years, saw those two sides of DiMarco in quick succession not long ago when they attended a local concert where a teen-age girl from a disadvantaged family sang beautifully. The young woman had studied in a fine arts program that the district has sacrificed to preserve basic academic courses in the face of budget cuts, Dundon said.

“Maureen had tears in her eyes,” Dundon said. “She knew this girl had come so far.”

And yet, soon afterward, Dundon recalled, DiMarco returned to budget negotiations in Sacramento, where the talks turned to no-frills spending plans that could force districts to make even deeper cuts in their fine arts programs.

“She is heartsick about the cuts, but she knows on balance that it’s fair,” Dundon said. “To use her words, it’s not the end of Western civilization as we know it.”