One of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s centerpiece proposals back in his State of the State address earlier this month was a constitutional amendment to ensure the state spends more on higher ed than prisons. It sounds like a pretty good idea in the abstract. Since the early 1980s, California has built dozens of prisons, but only 3 new UC and CSU campuses – even though the construction cost is about the same, and even though students bring money into the system and create value when they leave it, whereas prisoners suck up resources and generate no value.

So something that would take money from prisons and give it to higher ed sounds like a great idea, right? Not according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, which slammed the proposal as “an unnecessary, ill-conceived measure that would do serious harm to the budget process” and concludes “we recommend rejection of this proposal.”

KQED’s John Myers offers a good overview of the issues:

The budget odd couple left almost everyone scratching their heads, though on its face it’s pretty simple: in four years time, there would be a cap on prison spending at 7% of the state’s general fund and a corresponding floor for the UC and CSU systems, combined, of at least 10% of general fund revenues.

But that wouldn’t be so simple because, as the LAO points out, about 9.5% of current GF revenues are going to prisons and only about 5.7% to UC/CSU.

To get to the magic numbers, the governor’s proposal would require any cuts in prison spending – beginning next year – to be transferred dollar for dollar to higher ed. If that swap of cash doesn’t get the UC/CSU piece of the pie up to 10% by July 2014, lawmakers would have to use “other available resources” to make up the difference.

It’s worth noting that this setup procedure – cutting prison costs even beyond current levels and possibly forcing cuts in other programs to pay for the proposal – hasn’t been widely talked about, and has been completely absent from any public mention of the plan by Governor Schwarzenegger.

In other words, the proposal would take money from prisons regardless of their actual spending needs, give it to higher ed but won’t guarantee higher ed gets as much money as the mandate requires so other programs are dragged into this, and as Myers further explains, would exclude community colleges from getting the funds AND exempts operating costs of prisons built under the huge AB 900 bond from the cap on prison spending.

What this all reveals is that Arnold Schwarzenegger once again is trying to use a gimmick to avoid actually solving the underlying problems. Prison spending is high because our sentencing laws are ridiculous. Instead of ending the war on drugs and reconsidering Three Strikes, Arnold thinks the answer is to just cut prison spending by constitutional fiat and dump the money into higher ed.

And instead of finding a long-term revenue source to fund higher education and ensure lasting prosperity for California’s future, he’s basically proposing a poorly thought-out raid on another big segment of the state budget.

When it comes time to render a verdict on his terms in office, Arnold Schwarzenegger will be remembered as someone who talked a big game, but persistently refused to offer genuine solutions that matched the talk. Looks like it’ll take our next governor to finally address the problems that Arnold let fester out of his own unwillingness to admit what needs to be done and to propose we actually do it.