SAN DIEGO —— A group of San Diego County educators and its supporters warned Thursday that the governor's retreat from a promise to restore cuts to the budget for the California public schools will lead to drastic consequences for education.

Calling itself the San Diego Education Coalition, the group held a press conference on the sidewalk outside the downtown San Diego office of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Front Street and called for the governor to live up to a pledge to be the "education governor."

If the governor's budget becomes law, coalition members said, it "will only lead" to more layoffs, increased class sizes and the end of "key programs." Also, they said, new proposals from Schwarzenegger would doom the minimum spending requirements for education as spelled out in Proposition 98.

Said Lois Klepin, a registered nurse who joined police and firefighters to help the educators pressure the governor on the state budget, "I'm here because the governor is a great disappointment."

Klepin said any cuts in education funding make it all that more difficult to train the nurses that are critically needed for San Diego County.

The coalition said the governor's proposed budget breaks his pledge to restore $2 billion that educators agreed to cut in 2004-05 —— thus allowing Prop. 98 to be suspended —— in order to ease the state's fiscal crunch.

Instead of getting a "fair share" of $3 billion in estimated new state revenue back into the schools' budget for 2005-06, coalition members said, the governor's spending proposal "takes even more money from our schools."

In Sacramento, a spokesman for Schwarzenegger said the $2 billion is to be repaid, but it will come in installments over 15 years. Otherwise, said H.D. Palmer, a deputy director for the state Department of Finance who speaks on the governor's behalf in budget matters, "under any scenario we looked at, it (payback in 2005-06 of the $2 billion) would have meant a very deep and dramatic reduction in health and human services programs."

Those cuts, he said, would have come in programs such as state health insurance for the children of low-income families.

The $111.7 billion budget unveiled by Schwarzenegger in January hikes total spending on education by $1.8 billion in 2005-06, from $59.3 billion to $61.1 billion.

Educators say that amount does not keep up with rising costs. The proposal slows the rise in education spending and includes no provision for immediately paying back the $2 billion educators said they were promised be paid back the coming fiscal year, which starts July 1.

It comes as California ranks 43rd in the nation in per-student spending, according to a 2001-02 tally by the U.S. Department of Education.

In January 2004, the coalition and the governor announced they'd agreed to keep Prop. 98 intact and at the same time slice $2 billion from education funding to relieve a straitened state budget. Prop. 98 provides that 39 percent of state General Fund revenues and local property taxes go for public education for both K-12 and the community colleges.

Now educators feel betrayed, said Lois Shive, a representative of the California Teachers Association and a teacher at Escondido High School. "The promise that was made was to the future of the state," she said.

At Thursday's downtown press conference, coalition members said the focus must be on at least propping back up an ailing public education system in California.

"All I ask him (Schwarzenegger) to do," said San Diego County Superintendent of Schools Rudy Castruita, one of the speaker at the press conference, "is keep his word that he's the education governor."

Another speaker, Steve McMillan, who is both the vice president of the San Diego Police Officers Association Inc. and a member of the Poway Unified School District board, said crime goes up as education goes down.

"The more money we take out of education," he said, "the more money we have to put into law enforcement and the prisons."

Coalition members said other proposals that are afoot —— one a ballot initiative called the "live within our means act" and the other a measure in the Legislature labeled ACA 4 —— would gut the education funding plan set out in Prop. 98.

The initiative, which would appear on the ballot only if enough signatures are gathered and the governor calls a special election, would allow Prop. 98 to be suspended, with the money now owed the schools to be repaid over 15 years, Palmer said.

The measure in the Legislature would amend the state constitution, prohibit suspension of Prop. 98 and pay back over 15 years the money owed —— an estimated $3.7 billion.

ACA 4 would also repeal the so-called Test 3, which lowers the state's guaranteed level of education funding when tax revenues grow at a slower rate than personal income. It would further scuttle something called the "maintenance factor," which builds the guaranteed sum up after it is lowered.

The coalition says the proposal would basically gut Prop. 98.

Contact staff writer Bruce Kauffman at (760) 761-4410 or bkauffman@nctimes.com.