RALEIGH — Democratic Gov. Beverly Perdue vetoed the North Carolina budget plan Sunday, saying the Republican-led Legislature’s proposal would do “generational damage” to public education and other pillars of the state. Still, she may be unable to stop the plan if members of her party who’ve already defected vote to override.

Perdue’s announcement in the old Capitol building made history. She’s the first North Carolina chief executive to ever veto the state government budget bill. It was written by the first Republican majorities to hold both the House and Senate in 140 years.

Perdue continued her criticism of GOP legislative leaders, who could still win this fiscal battle with expected override votes this week.

“I will not put my name on a plan that so blatantly ignores the values that has built this great North Carolina or the value of our people,” Perdue said.

Then she sat down in the old Senate chambers and thumped on the budget document a red-stained veto stamp handed to her by Chief of Staff Britt Cobb. The General Assembly, she said, “may be satisfied with a state in reverse, but I am not.”

Perdue had until Tuesday to sign into law the bill that spends $19.7 billion next year, veto it, or let it become law without her signature. Her veto wasn’t unexpected. She’s traveled the state over the past few weeks deriding the budget, saying it will devastate public education and lay off thousands of workers after what she calls decades of improvements done largely under Democratic state leadership.

She talked about her discussions with local educators, business leaders and other citizens over the past week. Perdue said she made up her mind in Friday while in Boone when a schoolteacher relayed to her that he had told a student interested in a similar career to work in another state because of all the damaging cuts to education.

“This budget results in generational damage, to tear at the very fibers that’s made this state strong,” Perdue said. “Not only our schools and our universities and our community colleges are damaged, but also our communities, our environment, our public safety system and our ability to care for those who need us most.”

Republicans were all but predicting a budget victory late last week, even with the veto, since five Democrats joined GOP lawmakers in giving a two-year spending bill final approval June 4.

None of the five have yet waivered, despite an onslaught of criticism from Perdue as well as her allies, who have been running TV ads, sending mailers and holding impassioned meetings in the districts of the defectors in hopes of turning them back. Just four would have to side with Republicans in the House. The Senate Republican majority is already veto-proof.

Perdue said she was still hopeful that House members — only two of the 73 who voted for the budget need to flip — would sustain her veto. The General Assembly returns to work today. A House vote isn’t likely to come until at least Tuesday.

Confident Republican legislative leaders quickly countered Perdue’s criticism Sunday. House Speaker Thom Tillis, R-Mecklenburg, said in a statement he looked forward to an override vote soon. While Perdue and education leaders have said the budget will eliminate at least 13,000 public education jobs, Tillis and other GOP leaders argue the actual number of layoffs will be a small fraction of that due to attrition and vacancies while down-sizing government and ending temporary taxes.

Perdue insisted the veto wasn’t about politics or power, as Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, said in an interview after the announcement. Otherwise, Berger said, she would have tried harder to reach a consensus with the Legislature.

“How dare he. How dare he,” Perdue said. “This message has nothing whatsoever to do with power ... this is about the future of North Carolina.”

“She has shown no leadership on this issue and no willingness to work with the Legislature, choosing instead to veto a budget that protects education and creates jobs,” Tillis said.

North Carolina governors have vetoed 15 previous bills since they received the power in 1997. But none has ever rejected the budget.

A successful override would be a painful defeat for Democrats and for Perdue, who offered a budget four months ago that would have extended most of a penny temporary increase in the sales tax set to expire June 30 to prevent the kinds of cuts she said the Republican budget plan would cause. The final budget lets the entire penny expire.

“They know that much of the damage that this budget is going to wreak on North Carolina is quite simply unnecessary,” Perdue said.

The renegade Democrats interviewed were convinced GOP leaders would never agree to anything short of the entire penny sales tax expiring, which would mean $1.1 billion in lost revenues. They say they were able to get another $300 million more for the public schools compared to earlier GOP plans and preserve more jobs.

“The Republicans and the governor were just way, way apart,” said Rep. Jim Crawford, D-Granville, the most senior legislator of the five and a former top budget-writer when Democrats were in charge. “A lot of people don’t like to admit that we came to a better conclusion in the middle, but the truth is we have a much better budget than we’d have any other way.”

Other Democrats siding with Perdue praised her veto. She “placed herself squarely in the company of North Carolina’s great education leaders,” said House Minority Leader Joe Hackney, D-Orange.

A successful override would build muscles of the new GOP House and Senate majorities after they lost a series of veto showdowns with Perdue earlier this year. They would enact a budget two weeks before the new fiscal year begins, the earliest date in about 30 years, according to General Assembly data.