Assembly Approves a Largely GOP State Budget : Legislature: The spending plan cuts welfare payments and boosts funding for prisons and higher education. It is expected to pass the Senate on Monday.

SACRAMENTO —  The Assembly, its members eager to begin a holiday weekend, passed the state budget Saturday and sent it to the Senate, which is expected to approve it on the Fourth of July.

Displaying little of the partisan rancor that has marked past budget deliberations, lawmakers also approved about half a dozen other measures that are needed to make the budget work.

Legislative leaders said there was something in the recession-squeezed budget for everyone to hate, with cuts in various programs such as welfare and aid to the aged, blind and disabled. There were also increases in spending for prisons and higher education.

The document was shaped largely by Republican Gov. Pete Wilson and his GOP allies in the Legislature, who can stop any budget they do not like by withholding their votes and depriving the Democratic majority of the two-thirds margin needed to enact a spending plan.

“This is not a great budget,” said Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco). “It is the governor’s budget and it meets the state’s needs for the next year.”

Wilson, in a statement released by his office, said the final product was the result of compromise on all sides.

“I believe the end result provides a spending plan that keeps California living within its means,” he said.

The $57.3-billion budget is part of a two-year deficit spending plan that will require $7 billion in borrowing. The entire plan is balanced on the assumption that the federal government will come through with $2.8 billion in new money the year after next to reimburse the state for the cost of serving illegal immigrants.

If that money does not materialize, separate legislation demanded by the banks that will finance the debt could trigger deep, across-the-board reductions in all state-supported programs except education.

Wilson signed that measure, unprecedented in the state’s history, late Friday after it was overwhelmingly approved in both houses of the Legislature.

The budget cuts welfare grants 2.3% to $593 per month--the minimum allowed by federal law--and denies extra aid to women who conceive additional children after they are on the welfare rolls. It bans welfare assistance to legal immigrants for five years if they entered the country with the help of a sponsor who promised to look after their financial needs, a provision that could affect 15,000 recipients.

Pregnant illegal immigrants no longer will receive state-funded prenatal care, but the budget gives a boost to a parallel program for the working poor who are legal residents of the state.

The plan also cuts aid to the aged, blind and disabled 2.3% and reduces funds for county hospitals.

It provides enough money to allow public schools in kindergarten through 12th grade to keep pace with rising enrollments but not to keep pace with inflation, and gives the prisons enough to house an increasing number of inmates.

There are no new taxes. Reinstatement of the renters tax credit, which was suspended a year ago, was postponed for two more years.

Liberal Democrats complained that the measure was too harsh on the poor.

“I was once proud to be a citizen of this state and now I am embarrassed,” said Assemblyman John Vasconcellos, the veteran Santa Clara Democrat who chairs the budget-writing Ways and Means Committee. “If we continue to maraud the poor and protect the rich, California will become a tragic state instead of a Golden State.”

The budget bill passed on a 55-21 vote, with 39 Democrats and 16 Republicans voting in favor. Eighteen Republicans and three Democrats voted against the measure.

“We have sent a clear message to the citizens of this state that their representatives understand that partisan differences must be set aside to work for the common good,” Wilson said in his statement.

He added: “We have demonstrated to the investment community that we can avoid the kind of political gridlock that could have put the state’s financial standing in jeopardy.”

Although the budget will be four or five days late by the time it is enacted, the agreement came soon enough to prevent another embarrassing round of IOUs, which the state was forced to use to pay its bills during a 63-day budget stalemate in 1992.