COLUMBIA, S.C. - After largely winning a fight to pay off a two-year-old state deficit, Gov. Mark Sanford has turned his attention to other budget priorities, including restoring money raided from a variety of trust and reserve accounts during the past three years.

In a letter sent to legislators Friday, Sanford said he is considering vetoes on "all or substantial portions of the budget" if his concerns aren't addressed. But legislators said the governor's concerns in the letter are either addressed or are coming too late in the process.

A Senate and House conference committee met Monday and worked out differences in the state's $5.5 billion spending plan. Legislators expect to adopt the compromise budget this week and send it to the governor.

Sanford said $123 million in higher budget forecasts for the fiscal year that begins July 1 and a $130 million expected surplus from the current budget year should be applied to:

_ Eliminating any of the $155 million deficit from the 2002 fiscal year.

_ Covering projected agency budget deficits from this fiscal year.

_ Making sure education and Medicaid programs are covered with reliable sources of money.

_ Restoring money raided from reserve and trust fund accounts during the past three years.

_ Reducing estimated collections from tougher enforcement of the state's tax laws to $50 million, down from the $90 million the House and Senate expect. Sanford also is worried the money won't materialize and will hurt funding for the Department of Social Services and other Cabinet agencies.

"If I am presented with a budget that fails to address these basic concerns, then I may have no other alternative than to veto all or substantial portions of the budget," Sanford's letter said.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence, and House Ways and Committee Chairman Bobby Harrell, R-Charleston, said portions of Sanford's appeal come too late to address and others have been dealt with.

"I agree with the spirit of what he's trying to say," Harrell said. The House and Senate "were trying to get as close to that as we can anyway, but we have to operate within the rules of the House and the Senate," Harrell said.

"We did deal with the deficit as he talks about in his letter," Harrell said. "We have paid off 100 percent of it."

Budget writers also addressed expected shortfalls in state spending this year, notably at the Corrections Department, one of Sanford's cabinet agencies.

Harrell said only a small portion of the Medicaid and education budgets now are tied to money the state can't expect every year.

But restoring the nearly $430 million taken from trust and reserve accounts during the past three years will have to wait, Harrell said.

"We would very much like to do that. There isn't a means to do that in this conference committee," Harrell said.

Handling that and lowering expectations for the Revenue Department's collections would require a two-thirds vote in both the Senate and House.

Sanford's spokesman Will Folks said the letter was sent to all members of the General Assembly with good reason.

"The governor's hope is that if these concerns aren't addressed in the final version of the conference committee's report, the General Assembly will reject the report and send the conferees back to the drawing board," Folks said.

"To send it back to us would be a waste of time and futility. It doesn't accomplish anything," Leatherman said. "My question would be does he understand the process or not?"

Even before Sanford's letter, Leatherman said he wouldn't agree to anything in the compromise budget that could force that type of vote.

"What he may or may not understand at this point in the process," Leatherman said, is "short of going back to the floor of the two houses, you're locked in." Leatherman said he has "absolutely no intentions at all" of seeking a two-thirds vote.

Harrell and Leatherman would have to rally two-thirds votes to override Sanford's vetoes.

If they don't, the vetoes would create surpluses that the Legislature would decide how to spend next year, Leatherman and Harrell said.