AUGUSTA — Angry that lawmakers presented him with a “business-as-usual budget” at the last minute, Republican Gov. Paul LePage on Thursday vetoed 64 items listed in the two-year, $6.7 billion state spending plan the Legislature has approved that includes income tax cuts and more money for schools.

The governor vetoed about $60 million worth of spending, his spokeswoman said. She said she couldn’t provide a list of the initiatives because he struck out the items by hand and delivered the roughly 600-page document to lawmakers.

A spokeswoman for House Speaker Mark Eves said his office is going through the document Thursday morning.

The Legislature can override line-item vetoes by simple majority votes but must vote on each line-item veto individually. In this case, each of LePage’s line-item vetoes appears in each year of the biennial budget. That could require 128 override votes

If the Legislature overrides line-item vetoes, the governor can still veto the entire bill. That still needs to be done within 10 days of when the bill originally came to him from the Legislature.

Then the Legislature can vote to override the veto with a two-thirds majority vote. 

In a letter to lawmakers, LePage accused them of crafting the budget “under the cover of darkness and behind locked doors.” He chided them for securing funding for their own pet projects instead of pumping more money into services for the people with disabilities and the elderly.

“Because politicians are so busy capitulating to special interests and kowtowing to social-justice activists prowling the halls of the State House, they ignore our elderly, disabled and mentally ill citizens,” he said.

LePage acknowledged Wednesday that he’s issuing the line-item vetoes to slow down the budget process and “waste” lawmakers’ time. The House and Senate will need to vote on each individual line to override his vetoes.

The line-item vetoes include cuts such as:

• More than $30 million in cuts to state funding for Maine’s K-12 schools.

• $4.1 million in cuts to food stamps, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and Supplemental Security Income. LePage’s office said this is how much would be saved by no longer providing benefits for legally present noncitizens — a move he tried to make, but the Legislature blocked.

• $1 million in new funding for Federally Qualified Healthcare Centers, which LePage said was unnecessary.

• $1 million in funding for scholarships and grants for the Put ME to Work program, a signature initiative of House Speaker Mark Eves, D-North Berwick.

• $500,000 for a Maine DOT study of expanded passenger rail service in Bangor and Lewiston.

• $410,000 in funding to expand workforce development at Brunswick Landing.

• $300,000 in funding for Maine’s Drug Courts, a drug-addiction treatment program.

• $200,000 in funding for the state to buy the Frances Perkins Homestead in Newcastle.

• $200,000 in funding for the Historic Preservation Commission.

• $55,000 in funding for Meals on Wheels for Medicaid patients.

Information from the Bangor Daily News was used in this report. It will be updated.

Line Item Vetoes

Combined the House and Senate will have to take 256 roll-call votes to process @Governor_LePage line-item vetoes. #mepolitics

— Scott Thistle (@thisdog) June 18, 2015

Gov. Paul LePage's Line-Item Veto Letter