State schools chief Jack O'Connell would rather have spent his brief Ventura County homecoming Thursday updating his former neighbors about the progress being made to raise test scores and to better prepare students to join the state's work force.

With his budget in limbo, however, and a gubernatorial recall effort transfixing policymakers, the former state senator couldn't resist taking a dig at how political shenanigans in Sacramento were gumming up preparations for the first day of school.

"Despite the events dominating the newspapers today, the major policy issue remains that three weeks into the new fiscal year we are without a budget," O'Connell told educators and business leaders at a luncheon sponsored by the Economic Development Corporation of Oxnard and the Ventura County Economic Development Association.

O'Connell, who was raised in Oxnard and taught there, predicted the effort to oust Gov. Gray Davis would fail.

O'Connell said he trusts California voters to vote down the recall even if they hold a dim view of how well Davis has led the state since his re-election in November.

"It's really been a major distraction in Sacramento and one of what I think are two major reasons the budget hasn't been passed," O'Connell said. "My sense is that the recall won't pass. A recall should be reserved for malfeasance, some kind of crime committed in office and you haven't heard one person suggest that (of Davis)."

The minimum estimated cost -- $30 million -- for the Oct. 7 special recall election could almost fund a year's worth of class-size reduction for a class period in every high school in the state, O'Connell estimated.

O'Connell, who represented parts of Ventura County in the Legislature for 19 years before being elected state superintendent of public instruction in November, wrote the bill that established class-size reduction in the primary grades.

"I think in the final analysis, the voters will use a high standard and realize that recall would destabilize the state even more," he said.

He called the current proposal for $41 billion in K-12 spending this year the best educators could expect in a bad budget year and a significant improvement from the governor's original proposal in January.

"I know these are difficult times and I know we have to prioritize and there will be some cuts to public education," O'Connell said. "But when the people in the state have spoken ... public education has won."

O'Connell made headlines last week when he threatened to go to court to get the two-thirds requirement temporarily suspended for passing a budget or increasing revenues. He said Thursday he plans to file a petition with the California Supreme Court on Tuesday.

Without a state budget, the California Department of Education was legally barred from distributing more than $628.5 million in back-to-school funding this month.

"I think the lawsuit is a great idea," Ventura County Superintendent of Schools Charles Weis said at the luncheon.

"We've got a job to do. There are 2.6 million students that will be showing up for class. The schools need to be able to keep going while they haggle the budget out."

In Nevada, which also has a two-thirds majority requirement, legislators on Monday buckled under a similar court threat and approved a budget that was balanced with a $836 million tax increase. O'Connell said he hopes for a similar breakthrough even before the high court rules on his petition.

But O'Connell said he is troubled by indications that to break the deadlock, legislators will resort to cuts that will hurt the state's poor and borrow against future revenues that will further jeopardize the state's credit worthiness.

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services cut the state's credit rating on Thursday to BBB, two levels above noninvestment grade, and warned that a further downgrade was possible.

"What concerns me is this approach that I call credit-card budgeting," said O'Connell, noting that California already has the lowest credit rating and highest borrowing costs of any state. "I'm just nervous going down this path."

O'Connell also met with the county's Workforce Investment Board and visited a summer program that introduces learning-disabled teens to career opportunities in the health-care industry.

The Ventura County Leadership Academy was scheduled to present the former local educator and legislator with its "Community Leader Award" at its awards dinner.