State lawmakers are back in Frankfort for day 59 of the Kentucky General Assembly regular session.

They're coming off a ten day veto period and today they quickly got down to business, overriding dozens of Governor Andy Beshear vetoes.

That includes the governor's line item veto of House Bill 500, the more than $31 billion, two year state budget bill and his veto message.

Governor Beshear repeatedly said the budget bill includes unfunded mandates.

He also vetoed several sections that he says would place financial limits on the state's ability to respond to natural disasters.

Some Democrats in the House shared those same concerns.

We really love to criticize the executive branch when they're not doing things the way that this general Assembly has, has envisioned that they should be doing it.

But when we don't fund things appropriately, they have to make hard choices.

And so just flipping through here, when we have unfunded mandate upon an unfunded mandate, and that's on top of ones that have been going on for years.

The Kentucky Commission on Women has never had an appropriation.

So they're all of these pieces that we want our executive branch to continue to be able to operate, but we're not funding them.

That money comes without operational costs, comes from somewhere, and it takes away from the other services that we also want our executive branch to perform.

But the part I'm concerned about is not funding disaster relief and forest fire relief.

Four years ago, we had devastating tornadoes in western Kentucky and the state sent help out of our budget.

But this budget has constrained what we can send for disaster relief.

In response, Republican leadership said the governor's explanations for many of his line item vetoes and House Bill 500 are flawed, and they contend the state budget passed by the General Assembly reflects a disciplined approach to government spending.

I'll remind everyone that, as we have said in the past, that if we don't specifically line item something, it is believed that it is in the base.

There's enough money there to cover the cost of that program or whatever it is that we are putting in, and no additional funding is needed.

The governor continues to quote Fletcher versus the Commonwealth incorrectly, as a as we have pointed out many times on this floor, Fletcher versus the Commonwealth, again, was when this General Assembly left without passing a budget.

The Supreme Court said when the in that case that the governor could just not use money to pay for things, it had to be appropriated.

However, in that same opinion, they went on to say that if the general Assembly leaves here passing a budget, that it is his requirement to follow the law as it is written by the General Assembly to the best of his ability with the money that he is given.

The lady from Jefferson spoke about previous disasters.

I would remind everyone that those recovery efforts that were done a few years ago were paid for with cash.

For the first time in this state's modern history, over $1 billion, which we inherited.

The budget when we came in would have broke us because there was no money in the budget reserve trust fund.

This state is in a great position now.

The House voted strictly along party lines to override all but six of the governor's 88 line item vetoes in House Bill 500.

Late this afternoon, the Senate did the same, but not before members of both parties shared some of their frustrations.

As I look at the vetoes that have been offered line by line in certain areas, in fact, some vetoes apparently we agree with.

I find a lot of unfunded mandates, I find reductions, and I find arguments that suggest that this creates unintended, potentially at least unintended consequences.

The chairman of the House Appropriations Committee said, tell us what's in the base.

I'm talking to the public now.

Press here.

Tell us what's in the base.

Governor.

You want.

The response was, no, we're not going to tell you.

Give us the documents.

No, we're not giving you the documents.

We were told, oh, wait a minute.

You all didn't fund that?

That wasn't a priority.

Guess what?

It's in there now.

You know what the priority is.

With most of the governor's vetoes of House Bill 500 having been overturned in both chambers, the state's two year budget bill is now finalized and will go into effect on July 1st of this year.