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SALT LAKE CITY — Gov. Gary Herbert said Wednesday he believes he can show lawmakers there's no need to override his recent veto of $4.5 million in funding for early education programs.

"I think, at the end of the day, the governor's office and the Legislature will be in the same place," Herbert said after a ceremonial bill signing at Lincoln Elementary School. "I'm not worried about an override. I want to get it done right."

Both House and Senate leaders are polling members to see if there's support for an override session, which would have to be held no later than May 9. It takes a two-thirds majority in both bodies to reverse a governor's veto.

Another option may be dealing with the funding cuts in a special legislative session, where lawmakers would be able to do more than vote up or down on restoring the funding cuts the governor made.

"It is complicated. There's politics," said Senate President Wayne Niederhauser, R-Sandy.

Niederhauser said he's asked senators to wait to decide about an override session until he can lay out their options, including a special session.

"I don't know anybody in the Senate, myself included, who wants to go into an override session just to override the governor," he said. "We're not looking to embarrass the governor."

Instead, Niederhauser said, lawmakers could make a "surgical fix" to the vetoed programs in a special session.

Herbert has already said he is willing to bring the Legislature back into session soon to consider new versions of other bills he vetoed, dealing with grandparents rights and exempting some recyclables from being labeled solid waste.

The governor issued his vetoes just before his midnight deadline on March 30, including a budget line item that provided $1.5 million for the UPSTART online preschool program, as well as funds for other education needs.

"It's not a matter of not funding it. It's a matter of funding it correctly," Herbert said. "The numbers have been a little unclear, but what we've found out with renewed analysis is there's about $2.4 million in reserve accounts."

He said with that much available, the online program could be expanded beyond what the vetoed funds would have allowed rather than attempting to "stockpile money and have it sitting there not being utilized."

House Majority Whip Francis Gibson, R-Mapleton, said House members will look at the governor's proposal, but there are still concerns about the other programs affected by the line-item veto.

"If UPSTART ends up being funded, so be it," Gibson said. But he said it's also important to restore a $3 million cut from the kindergarten through third grade reading program and the $275,000 for a televised teen chef competition.

The majority whip said interest in a veto override session is "pretty good so far." He said his fellow House members "wonder" about the vetoes since "these are all programs that have been funded and supported in the past."

The governor, who visited a preschool classroom before presiding at a signing ceremony in the school auditorium for a pair of bills aimed at helping at-risk children succeed, emphasized his support of early education.

"Pushing the pause button"

Herbert said he doesn't think he's sending mixed message by making that appearance as lawmakers consider overriding his vetoes.

"These programs are going to stay in place. We're not taking them away. We just want to make sure that as we give them additional money, that it's coming from the right places and getting the right outcomes," he said.

There are concerns about the reading program's effectiveness in the first and second grades, the governor said, that require "pushing the pause button" to make sure needed corrections are made.

The governor, facing a challenge in his re-election bid from fellow Republican Johnathan Johnson at the state party convention later this month, said the vetoes have "nothing to do with politics. This has to do with policy."

Johnson, chairman of Overstock.com, had no comment on the governor's action.