State Legislature Overrides Governor Stitt's Budget Vetoes

A busy budget battle in the Oklahoma state legislature finally came to a head Wednesday night.

Along with vetoing the $7.7 billion spending plan, Governor Kevin Stitt also vetoed all three key bills of the budget plan that would shift money around to fill a gap of more than a billion dollars.

However since late Wednesday night, thats all been overridden by both the house and senate. 

It was around 10 p.m. when the senate voted to override the Governor's veto on House Bill 2743, finally sealing the deal on the three bills the governor showed such concern over.

Two of those bills include retirement plan cuts for teachers firefighters and police officers to prevent majors cuts to schools. The other takes money from roads and bridges to help fill the budget gap.

The house also surpassed the Governor's veto on senate bill 1920, passing a nearly 8 billion dollar spending plan through to become law.

Leading up to this, the Governor and his team said they were essentially cut off from negotiations. Those in the legislature say thats not true.

“For him to make the statement that they had no input, the governor has had input all along the way. All along the way,” said appropriations and Budget Chair, Representative Kevin Wallace.

So far there's been no comment from the Governor's office about the override.

One thing both the governor and the legislature do agree upon is mending the rift between them. This is something both sides say has only widened in the last few months.