Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s $99.1 billion budget proposal balances the state’s deficit by taking money from cities, counties and the poor, according to local elected officials and Sacramento Democrats.

The budget plan, released Jan. 9, cuts billions of dollars from health and social services, and shifts $1.3 billion in property taxes away from local municipalities to the state. It includes no new taxes, but it does hike college fees.

Hardest hit are the state’s Medi-Cal program, which would lose about $900 million next year, and welfare programs, which are facing an $800 million cut.

An additional $1 billion from the state’s gas tax, earmarked for road projects, will instead be used to balance the budget.

The proposed cuts are already facing stiff opposition from Democrats, who say that Schwarzenegger’s plan to close a $15 billion deficit relies on the same kind of borrowing and one-time fixes that Schwarzenegger and state Republicans previously criticized.

“We need a balanced approach,” says John Laird the Democratic assemblyman from Santa Cruz who represents the Monterey Peninsula. “I would have tried to do some new revenues, some cuts, and some one-time things. This leaves a structural deficit of $5 billion. [Schwarzenegger] has done everything the Republicans criticized Gray Davis for doing last year.”

Both Laird and fellow Monterey County representative Assemblyman Simon Salinas (D-Salinas) criticize the governor for pricing less-affluent Californians out of the higher education and health care systems.

“Cuts to higher education are particularly bad, and Medi-Cal is bad,” Laird says. “We need to invest in the future, and that’s not what this budget does.”

While the governor’s proposed budget replaces the $4 billion that local municipalities lost when he repealed the car tax, local officials say the loss of property tax money to cities and counties is a violation of the governor’s pledge not to take money from local governments.

“It certainly looks that way,” says Monterey County budget manager Felipe Velazquez, who says the governor’s plan would cost the county about $12 million—and that’s not counting reductions to health and welfare programs.

“Of course those are the ones that the governor’s budget reduces significantly,” Velazquez says. “Medi-Cal, children’s services programs, in-home support services, Healthy Families program—we need more time to get these numbers.”

In addition to county government’s projected loss, cities say they’ll feel deep cuts if the legislature approves Schwarzenegger’s budget.

Monterey finance director Don Rhoads says the city would lose about $534,000. In Salinas, deputy city manager Jorge Rifa says the plan targets Salinas with an approximate $1 million hit.

“The combined property tax shift from the city and the redevelopment agency will be approximately $650,000,” Rifa says. “That’s added to the already $2.4 million [local tax dollars] they take every year. I can’t call it criminal, but I can say it’s a dramatic take-away from what we could have used to fund local services.

“Additionally, there will be no booking fee reimbursement. That’s a half-a-million-dollar item. So the impact to Salinas at this very early stage appears to be just over a million dollars.”

Schwarzenegger maintained his promise to cap fee increases at the University of California and California State University at 10 percent per year for undergraduates. However, graduate students would see fee increases of as much as 40 percent, and at community colleges, fees would go up from $18 per credit to $26.

“All of higher education in this budget takes a horrible hit,” Laird says. “Last year there was a 64 percent increase in community college fees. This would add another 44 percent fee increase. Last year there was a 45 percent fee increase at CSUs and UCs, and this would put 10 percent on top of it with lowering the threshold of eligibility for Cal Grants. You’re basically taking the higher education system away from a significant number of lower- and middle-class Californians.”

“We want a more balanced approach to solving the crisis,” Assemblyman Salinas says. “We don’t want the budget balanced solely on the backs of poor people, the indigent. We’re going to have to lessen the impact on Medi-Cal and the caps on Healthy Families—that’s certainly going to eliminate insurance for a lot of seniors and children. It could certainly cut off the health care system for some of my constituents.”