Governor says funds have better uses.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s revised $145 billion state spending plan, released Monday, eliminates state funding for a program used to protect farmland and prevent urban sprawl.

In an effort to reduce a $1.4 billion deficit without raising taxes, the governor’s plan would cut spending on social services, as well as cost-of-living increases for elderly and disabled people. It also cuts the $39.1 million the state spends on the Williamson Act, which gives farmers a tax break in exchange for keeping their land in farming.

Created in 1965, the Williamson Act protects 61,638 acres of farmland in Monterey County. The state reimburses counties for lost property tax revenues.

Central Coast Assemblyman John Laird, who chairs the Assembly Budget Committee, predicts that the proposal will meet stiff resistance in the legislature. “It’s a very worthy purpose to protect against sprawl development on good agricultural and range and land across California,” Laird says. “I think the Republicans in the legislature will be as opposed to completely cutting Williamson Act [money] as the Democrats.”

Laird says there are a handful of Democratic lawmakers in the “rural caucus,” and he’s one of them. In 2003, when then-Gov. Gray Davis wanted to cut funding for the Williamson Act, most Republican lawmakers in Sacramento tacked “Save the Williamson Act” posters on their office doors, Laird says. “I was asking them half in jest if they still had the posters, and if we would be seeing them on their doors,” he says.

During a press conference on May 14, at which Schwarzenegger released the spending plan, he explained the Williamson Act cuts by saying the state has better uses for the $39.1 million.

The governor’s budget, dubbed the May Revise, includes $660 million for early debt repayment, which isn’t likely to pass the Democratic legislature. “That $600 million is almost equal to the cuts to kids, families, CalWORKS, seniors, people with disabilities and people on social security,” Laird says.

The May revise kicks off six weeks of frenzied meetings in Sacramento as lawmakers scramble to finalize the state spending plan by midnight on June 30, in order to produce an on-time budget for the governor to sign. They met the deadline last year—the first time in six years Californians saw an on-time spending plan.