photo by: Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector

Lawrence Democratic Rep. Barbara Ballard, center, and Manhattan Democratic Rep. Sydney Carlin, seated left, were among the House members who changed their "no" vote to "yes" on a package of 15 overrides of budget vetoes issued by Gov. Laura Kelly.

TOPEKA — Three Republicans and three Democrats in the House — including one from Lawrence — dropped their opposition Friday to overriding 15 of Gov. Laura Kelly’s line-item vetoes in the state budget bill.

Kelly made more than 30 line-item vetoes in Senate Bill 125 — the appropriations bill that would keep state government running through the next fiscal year and featured an assortment of provisions sought by lobbyists and special-interest organizations. The Senate voted to override all of Kelly’s budget vetoes, while the House pulled together a list of 15 priority vetoes it would consider overriding.

In a stunner on Thursday, the GOP-led House rejected the scaled-down package and opened the door to sustaining each of the governor’s budget vetoes.

Rep. Charlette Esau, an Olathe Republican, was among the GOP lawmakers who initially voted with Democrats to prevent the House from securing the two-thirds majority necessary to override the governor’s budget vetoes. She returned to the Capitol on Friday convinced she had made a mistake, and offered a motion to reconsider the House’s rejection of the 15-item list.

The House responded by voting 88-34 to accept the override package. The two-thirds majority in the House was reached after six lawmakers flipped their votes. Those changing positions were Democrats Barbara Ballard of Lawrence, Sydney Carlin of Manhattan and KC Ohaebosim of Wichita along with Republicans Brian Bergkamp of Wichita, Steve Huebert of Valley Center and Esau.

Rep. Brandon Woodard, the Democratic leader in the House, said he appreciated the bipartisan coalition that voted 82-42 on Thursday to block the overrides. He said he was disappointed advocates and lobbyists were able to convince lawmakers to change their votes.

“I am disappointed, though not surprised, by the overnight decision change to reconsider the motion to override the governor’s budget line-item vetoes,” Woodard said. “It is fiscally irresponsible to bundle these line items together and push them through under pressure from GOP leadership and outside special interests. The voices of Kansans — and the judgment of their elected representatives — should never be overshadowed by external political agendas.”

Rep. Brett Fairchild, a Republican from St. John, refused to change his vote against the package in the House. He said there were individual vetoes that he’d enthusiastically vote to reverse, but he rejected the bundling of veto overrides. Traditionally, the House and Senate had voted on vetoes one at a time.

“It sends a message to the governor that we don’t even want her to find waste and fraud in the budgets,” Fairchild said.

Show me the money

Esau said she was most concerned about loss of a $1 million for O’Connell Children’s Shelter in Lawrence, which works with children dealing with trauma who might be a risk to themselves or others. She said funding for the shelter could help children in the foster care system who aren’t ready to be placed with a family.

“They (families) don’t have the ability to handle kids that need to be in a specific location getting treatment,” Esau said.

Kelly said she vetoed the appropriation because she viewed it as a no-bid contract that circumvented the state’s regular grant review process.

Another veto that was overridden involved a $3 million appropriation to the “pregnancy compassion awareness program” advocated by Kansans for Life and other organizations opposed to abortion. The program, housed in the office of the state treasurer and previously referred to as the “pregnancy crisis” program, was authorized as an alternative to traditional health clinics or family-planning centers. The governor’s veto message said she viewed the Legislature’s decision to place the program in the office of the state treasurer as “inappropriate and simply politically motivated.”

“There is no guarantee this funding is going to be directed to expenditures for moms and babies. It more or less has no strings attached,” said Rep. Jo Ella Hoye, D-Lenexa.

The overrides preserved bonding authority for a $130 million veterinary diagnostic laboratory to be built on the campus of Kansas State University. They restored $500,000 for unmanned aircraft research at Wichita State University and $500,000 for aviation research at the Salina campus of Kansas State, as well.

Also retained was a monthly rental fee of $1 per square foot for office space used by journalists in the Capitol. Kelly had vetoed the fee and recommended the Legislature “look for ways to make the lawmaking process more transparent.”

Kansas Reflector does not have office space at the Statehouse, but rents private office space in Topeka.

‘Highly inefficient’

The Legislature overrode Kelly’s veto of a provision that would forbid the Kansas Lottery from negotiating on contract renewals with casinos operating sports gambling in Kansas. Legislators also voted to override a veto of a $1.5 million for a new program in the state treasurer’s office to attract talented workers to the state. Kelly had opposed this allocation because it defunded a comparable program in the Kansas Department of Commerce known as “Love, Kansas.”

“It is highly inefficient to create a new, unvetted program with no guardrails in an agency that has nothing to do with workforce development or talent attraction,” Kelly said.

The overrides also included a requirement that the Kansas Arts Commission dedicate 60% of grants to counties with a population of fewer than 85,000 people.

The Legislature retained two appropriations to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment of $250,000 and $96,000 for tuberculosis prevention. Lawmakers also held onto an allocation of $263,000 to various Kansas health facilities for cerebral palsy research. And the votes reversed Kelly’s veto of $375,000 for interpreter services for individuals who were deaf or had hearing challenges.

The voting resulted in preservation of a provision that directed the Kansas Highway Patrol to collaborate with a third-party entity to build an aviation hangar in Wichita that would be leased to KHP. Originally, KHP requested funding to buy a hangar. Kelly said she vetoed it because a lease would cost the state more in the long run.

Legislators kept in place an estimated $2 million to purchase software that would diagram school buildings in preparation for emergency calls to law enforcement officers. The governor said she vetoed the expenditure because the state’s 911 agency didn’t request the funding and reported that it didn’t have the personnel capacity to enact the program.

Rep. John Carmichael, a Wichita Democrat who serves on the Kansas 911 Coordinating Council, said the earmark was the result of a lobbyist working to please clients that marketed the mapping software. He said the state was engaged in a pilot project to examine possible use of mapping technology, but that assessment wasn’t completed.

“If you want to know how taxpayer money gets wasted and how budgets get inflated, here’s a prime example,” Carmichael said.

— Tim Carpenter reports for Kansas Reflector.