First 5 commissions in Fresno, Madera and Merced counties have won a court fight with Gov. Jerry Brown and legislators to stop a $1 billion grab from the state’s early childhood programs that was aimed at trimming California’s budget deficit.

Fresno County Superior Court Judge Debra Kazanjian ruled that state legislation authorizing the money transfer is invalid.

“It’s a huge win for our kids and it’s a huge win for the voters of this state,” Kendra Rogers, executive director of First 5 Fresno County, said Monday.

Rogers said that First 5 Fresno County would have lost almost $17 million if Assembly Bill 99 had stood. The law would have compelled First 5 of Madera County to turn over $3.2 million and Merced County’s First 5 agency would have lost $3.1 million. The commissions had until June 30, 2012, to give the state the money.

Kazanjian wrote in her ruling that “the entire bill is invalid” to allow the state to take the money from the California Children’s Trust Fund administered by First 5 commissions.

State officials are reviewing the ruling, said H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for the state Department of Finance. No decision has been made on whether to appeal, he said.

The three Valley commissions were the first in the state to challenge Assembly Bill 99 in court. The Fresno, Madera and Merced county commissions were joined in the lawsuit by county agencies from Sonoma, Los Angeles, Riverside, Orange, San Diego, Marin and Solano.

First 5 commissions learned of Kazanjian’s Nov. 21 ruling from attorneys late Sunday evening. The ruling was mailed to both sides last week. The suit was filed in April.

The commissions argued that only voters could approve the state taking funds. First 5 commissions receive funds from Proposition 10, a cigarette tax approved by voters in 1998 to pay for early childhood programs.

Voters have twice rejected state appeals to take Proposition 10 money. The last try was in the 2009 special election, when voters rejected Proposition 1D, a ballot measure to divert Proposition 10 funds to the state.

Kenneth Price, a Fresno attorney representing the Valley commissions, said Kazanjian’s ruling found that local commissions have control over 80% of the total revenues that First 5 gets from the tobacco tax. And the state couldn’t use Proposition 10 funds to replace money for existing programs, he said.

State officials had said the money could be taken because it would be used for health services for low-income children up to age 5.

The state argued that its law was designed to address the budget crisis that had forced counties to eliminate essential health and human services to children. The latest legislative analysis pegs the state budget deficit at $13 billion.

But Palmer said Monday the ruling “does not make the current budget problem a billion [dollars] worse.”

Gov. Brown did not include the First 5 funds in his revised budget in May, Palmer said. And in June, the governor vetoed the Legislature’s budget that included the $1 billion.

In her ruling, Kazanjian said the state’s budget argument is “disingenuous in that it was the Legislature that ‘chose’ to cut funding to existing services instead of taking what might be the unpopular step of raising revenue.”

First 5 executive directors said they have been waiting for the court ruling to know how to proceed.

Madera and Merced commissions delayed funding new programs, for example.

And First 5 Fresno County programs faced elimination if the state had taken $17 million, Rogers said.

Losing First 5 funds would have been a blow to CASA of Fresno and Madera Counties, said Nathan Lee, executive director of the nonprofit agency that advocates for children in court.

The agency has a total budget of about $800,000 and this fiscal year received $196,000 from First 5 Fresno County, Lee said. “Whenever there’s a threat to First 5 funding, we’re concerned.”

Rogers said some counties already have cut programs, but “our commission felt pretty strong about our case, and we opted to take the route of filing the suit and hoping the court would side on the side of the voters.”