The Legislature has overridden Kansas Governor Sam Brownback’s veto on a major income tax increase bill – the largest in state history.

The bill is expected to raise $1.2 billion over two years by increasing taxes and ending an exemption that benefited roughly 330,000 farmers and small business owners.

State Representative Lonnie Clark, Junction City, said that the members of the House knew that they needed to get something to generate revenue, satisfy the courts on public school funding, and try to get the state back into positive and out of the red.

“We came together last night, it was a pretty divisive win for the override,” said Clark. “We had three or four people toward the end change their vote from ‘no’ to ‘yes’ and it gave us a huge margin and a good victory for the state of Kansas.”

The House voted 88-31 and the Senate 27-13 to override the Governor’s veto.

Now the bill goes to the Kansas Supreme Court for review for adequacy of funding for public schools.

“Over the next three years, there’s going to be about $850 million that will come and go into the school program,” said Clark. “This is going to show the Court that we have made a conscientious good decision to make an avenue for funding of the schools.”

The state Supreme Court will review that proposed funding package before it can be implemented.

Kansas faces projected budget shortfalls of $889 million through June 2019.