State agency and education officials detail preservation bonding requests

For the past two years, a large yellow tarp has hung from the ceiling of a room in the Fort Snelling Visitor’s Center to siphon away water and keep the people underneath dry when the rains come or the snow melts.

The money needed to fix this problem, and problems like it at the 6,180 state-owned buildings around Minnesota, were the focus of several presentations on asset preservation heard by the House Capital Investment Committee Tuesday. No action was taken.

Administration officials and leaders of the state’s public colleges and universities outlined their bonding requests to the committee, making their case for hundreds of millions of dollars they say is needed to tackle a catalog of deferred maintenance and renewal projects at buildings and facilities around the state.

Minnesota Management and Budget Commissioner Myron Frans said the forecasted need in the next 10 years to fund deferred maintenance and renewal and replacement projects would total $8.2 billion. Of that amount, Frans said $2.8 billion would be needed for state agency facilities, and higher education facilities would need $5.4 billion.

He encouraged the committee to fully fund Gov. Mark Dayton’s $1.5 billion bonding proposal.

“We need to maintain our assets by making smart investments around the state,” Frans said. “One of the ways to do that is with a robust bonding bill.”

University of Minnesota President Eric Kaler also made the case for his institution’s $238.5 million bonding request. The university has 29 million square feet of infrastructure, and Kaler said the money is needed to maintain, renovate and repair those assets.

“This year our capital request is all about renewal,” Kaler said. “There are no shiny new objects here.”

Officials with Minnesota State system provided the final overview for the committee, detailing their $224.5 million request.

They told members $130 million would be used for asset preservation and $94.5 million would go to more than a dozen other renovation projects at facilities around the state.