FRANKFORT — Gov. Paul Patton, the first two-term governor in nearly two centuries, heads into the last budget session of his administration with dramatically different expectations than he had barely 10 months ago.

        Then, the state was flush, and Mr. Patton had big plans for initiatives that would have ranged from downtown revitalization and rural land conservation to reforming Kentucky's notoriously tricky tax system.

        An economy in the tank and a world at war with terrorism have changed his outlook.

        “I'm going to walk out of here not being able to do a lot of things I wanted to do,” Mr. Patton said in an interview.

        He said he expects to present few major initiatives to the 2002 General Assembly. In fact, he says, just staying the course will be a significant achievement.

        “We're going to concentrate more on the good things we have done than on the things that we can't do,” Mr. Patton said. “And if we can maintain the momentum of what we've done, in these economic times, it may be one of the best accomplishments of our administration.”

        Within the boundaries of reduced resources and expectations, Mr. Patton said he will make some proposals. The topics will include revising changes in workers' compensation programs for miners who suffer black lung disease; improving enforcement of seat belt laws; more regulations of mining for minerals other than coal; regulating electric power plants; and ensuring the state does not pay too much for prescription drugs, either to drug companies or pharmacists.

        It isn't just money that could restrict Mr. Patton's initiatives in the coming legislature.

        The legislature itself is likely to be fixated on its own redistricting, which could drag the administration into the fray. Mr. Patton recognizes the pitfalls and tries to skate around it without exactly staying out of it.

        “That's an important issue to the legislature, and I think it ought to be addressed this session,” Mr. Patton said. “But I'm not involved in it, and I don't expect to be involved in it.”

        Senate Republicans have broadly hinted they will block any legislative activity until redistricting it resolved, and Mr. Patton warned there will be political consequences to that. Anyone who tries to impede progress “will pay the price,” Mr. Patton said.

        And Mr. Patton's own relations with Senate Republicans remain perhaps a bigger unknown.

        “I have no relationship with David Williams,” Mr. Patton acknowledges.

        Mr. Williams, the Republican president of the Senate, has made Mr. Patton the lightning rod for helping keep his own caucus in line. Mr. Williams also has taken his comments and criticism of Mr. Patton to unprecedented personal levels, broadly intimating that Mr. Patton has lied and once calling him a “mouthy drunk.”

        Mr. Patton said he has a “good relationship” with other members of Senate Republican leadership.

        “There's no reason that we have to be disagreeable,” Mr. Patton said.

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