Senate Republican leader Dick Ackerman said Tuesday his caucus will propose to cut welfare, dip into public transit and eliminate 6,000 vacant state positions among other actions to save nearly $1 billion for the state on top of the budget that's already been approved by the Assembly.

Ackerman's list of cuts, which he plans to reveal in its entirety on Wednesday, came after Senate Democrats challenged the GOP to either come up with their own cuts or vote for the pending budget bill. The spending plan is stalled in the upper house two Republican votes short of the two-thirds majority required.

Ackerman said the state can save money by hiring more inspectors to search for welfare fraud. And although he isn't proposing cuts to higher education, Ackerman says the state should eliminate two UC-affiliated programs: the Labor Union Institute at UCLA and the UC Mexico facility in Mexico City.

He said the cuts would actually turn a $700 million operating shortfall into a $300 million surplus for the state for the fiscal year that began July 1.

Ackerman says he still wants language in the budget to prevent Attorney General Jerry Brown from filing suit against local governments for failing to comply with the state's anti-greenhouse gas law before regulations are adopted.

By Judy Lin, Bee Capitol Bureau - July 24, 2007