SACRAMENTO For several years, the states deep budget problems have thwarted attempts by supporters of a school of medicine at UC Riverside to get the Legislature to appropriate $15 million for the school.

State finances are improving. Now a labor dispute could complicate the effort.

Tuesday, an Assembly panel easily approved an Inland lawmakers bill to appropriate $15 million toward the school, which is scheduled to accept its first class later this year.

But the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, known as AFSCME, emerged as a powerful potential impediment to the bill and other efforts to obtain the money. The UC system and the union have battled bitterly in recent years and a top union official said Tuesday that he objects to rewarding the system with $15 million for a new medical school.

When you say UC, my 25,000 members see red. They dont see a good neighbor. They dont see someone who cares about the poor or the working class at the University of California, said Willie Pelote, the unions legislative and political director.

AFSCME is among the most active players in California politics and opposition by the federation and other unions scuttles dozens of bills in the Democrat-controlled Legislature. The medical school bills success Tuesday had less to do with committee Democrats commitment to the medical school than the fact that the union raised its objections shortly before Tuesdays hearing.

AFSCME, though, played a significant role in last years elections of Assemblyman Jose Medina and state Sen. Richard Roth -- the Riverside Democrats leading the push to appropriate the money for the medical school.

Medina, the author of Tuesdays bill, is a teacher union member and marched with AFSCME picket lines at UC Riverside. But with Pelote sitting beside him, Medina said his bill has nothing to do with UCs union troubles.

UC Riversides Interim Chancellor Jane Close Conoley was among a roomful of UC Riverside supporters who attended the Capitol hearing. Assemblyman Eric Linder, R-Corona, who represents part of Riverside, spoke in favor of Medinas measure and voted for it.

G. Richard Olds, the dean of the school of medicine, acknowledged the problems posed by the unions objections to the bill.

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UCR MEDICAL SCHOOL : Funding bill passes committee