FRANKFORT, Ky. — Republican House Speaker David Osborne said in a statement that Gov. Andy Beshear manufactured a crisis at Lee Specialty Clinic to engineer a political comeback, arguing the funding was never actually at risk.

Osborne said the Louisville clinic's budget "has been included in the budget passed by the General Assembly from the very beginning," making the governor's decision to announce cuts and then reverse them "both irresponsible and unnecessarily cruel to those already facing difficult circumstances." "Once again the Governor created a crisis just so he can appear to save the day," Osborne said in the statement released on June 25.

The dispute centers on Beshear's handling of state budget constraints. In early June, the Democratic governor announced a $4.5 million cut to the clinic serving more than 1,000 Kentuckians with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Two weeks later, Beshear said he found funding elsewhere in the budget and reversed the cuts, reallocating money from a Capitol Annex renovation project. Beshear acknowledged the move was a temporary "Band-Aid solution."

Beshear blamed the Republican-controlled legislature's budget for underfunding services, saying much of the department's money is obligated under federal and state law, leaving only 11 percent available for discretionary cuts. GOP lawmakers, meanwhile, argued Beshear should have sought out waste and inefficiencies rather than cutting essential services.

The conflict drew widespread public attention when hundreds of families descended on the Capitol on June 24 to plead with lawmakers to protect the clinic. Some advocates said they felt used as "political pawns" in the dispute between the branches of government. Osborne raised questions about the governor's broader budget management, asking what Beshear intended to do with previously allocated funding and suggesting the reallocations raised concerns about other services funded in the enacted budget.