Topeka ? Gov. Kathleen Sebelius vetoed funding for a new white-collar crime unit and the renovation of a crime lab in Great Bend.

Sebelius struck a dozen line items Friday in a bill completing the state’s $10.3 billion budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1. The remainder of the bill, containing some $110 million in spending, will take effect.

The new white-collar crime unit, staffed by two employees, would have been part of Atty. Gen. Phill Kline’s office. The crime lab to be renovated is operated by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, also under Kline’s supervision.

The budget bill contained $200,000 for the white-collar crime unit and an additional $624,005 for renovating the Great Bend lab, money Kline said came from savings in the agency’s budget.

“Crimes will continue to go unsolved and violent criminals will remain on our streets,” Kline said.

In her veto message, Sebelius noted that several agencies, including the KBI, the securities commissioner, the bank commissioner and insurance commissioner, already fight financial fraud.

She said those agencies, along with county prosecutors, “have contributed significantly to the investigation and prosecution of white-collar crime across the state and will continue to do so.”

Kline said those agencies can go only so far.

“Kansas law only allows us to prosecute public corruption,” Kline said. “The problem is the governor hasn’t joined in the fight and has hampered it now with this particular veto.”

Sebelius said renovating the KBI’s lab in Great Bend “may have great merit,” but discussions about it should have started when legislators convened their session in January.

“It should be handled through the normal budget process and considered in context with all of the other priorities the agency may have,” Sebelius wrote in her veto message.

Kline questioned whether the decisions were partisan or based on good policy, noting that Sebelius vetoed a bill sought by Treasurer Lynn Jenkins that would have changed the funding of the treasurer’s office.

Nicole Corcoran, the governor’s spokeswoman, denied that Sebelius was using her veto power to attack Kline and Jenkins, two Republican statewide officials.

“It’s not about a person, it’s about the financial stability of the state,” Corcoran said. “It’s unfortunate that we’re talking about that. There’s no truth in that at all.”

Sebelius eliminated funding for several other items, arguing that the agencies did not need additional funds for them: $200,000 to have upper-level undergraduate courses on community college campuses in southwest Kansas; $57,850 for a new food-safety director in the Department of Agriculture; and $46,700 for an administrator in the Juvenile Justice Authority.

The governor vetoed $300,000 for Department of Environment grants to nonprofit organizations providing care to pregnant women. She said such services are provided elsewhere.

Sebelius also vetoed four provisions in the budget bill intended to implement a plan to borrow $82 million in transportation funds to provide additional revenue for schools. Legislators failed to approve that plan or any other school finance proposal.

The bulk of the bill’s $110 million cost can be attributed to legislators’ expectations that the state will receive more federal funds to provide medical services for the needy and to upgrade voting machines, improve training of poll workers and expand voter education efforts.