House committee approves bonding bills

Heading to the House Ways and Means Committee are a pair of bills that would spend nearly $1 billion.

Approved Wednesday by the House Capital Investment Committee on split-voice votes were HF2490, which would use $850 million worth of general-obligation bonding to fund building projects around the state, and HF1068, which would fund another $125 million in projects with cash from the state’s budget surplus. The bills are scheduled to be before the House Ways and Means Committee Friday.

Gov. Mark Dayton released his proposal Jan. 15 that includes $986 million in general-obligation bonding; the Senate has yet to unveil its bonding proposal.

Capital investment bills that would increase the state’s debt load through general-obligation bonding, such as HF2490, are traditionally the focus of even-numbered years; however, they can be hard to pass because approval requires three-fifths of the body — 81 votes — to pass. This year, the DFL has a 73-61 seat advantage.

Because HF1068 would be funded with just cash, it only needs a simple majority to pass.

HF2490 checks in at $914.6 million, of which $850 million would be general-obligation bonding. (View the original spreadsheet)

A handful of relatively smaller amendments were added to the bill, but not included was a delete-all amendment offered by Rep. Matt Dean (R-Dellwood) that, he said, would better reflect an agreement between caucus leaders for a bill that both sides could support and one that reflects the needs of the entire state.

“The public needs to know that we can do that, to move forward, to put the state’s best interests ahead of party interests or partisanship, in particular,” Dean said. “I think that’s frustrating for a lot of people.”

A second, unsuccessfully offered by Rep. Kim Norton (DFL-Rochester), would have reduced a $22.2 million appropriation for an Education Village at Winona State University to the $5.83 million, nearly what was requested from the university for the project at this time.

Of the difference, $7 million would have gone toward the Rochester civic and convention center project that is funded at $30 million in the bill. Norton said $37 million is needed “to get the job done,” and noted the full amount is included in the governor’s proposal. The remaining funds would have gone to local road improvement fund grants.

“Eighty-two percent of a project that must have 100 percent in order to be built is not useful,” she said. “That’s 82 percent of nothing.”

Since the bill was released Tuesday, Norton said she spoke to University President Scott Olson.

“While he would love and hope someday to have the full Winona State University Education Village funded, his request today is for $5.902 million,” she said. “He was very clear with me that he supports the Mayo Civic Center and what it does for our region of the state. He hopes that this body will come back and fund the remainder of (the Education Village) in a future year when they request it.”   

Rep. Alice Hausman (DFL-St. Paul), who chairs the committee and sponsors the two bills, opposed the amendment.

“One of the things we can do to improve the quality of our education, to improve the achievement gap (is getting) the best-trained teachers that we can manage,” she said “I believe that this Education Village has the potential to become that shining star, to train the best teachers, a state-of-the-art process for training teachers that suggests Minnesota does it better than anyone else.”

Absent from the bill is the $126 million needed to finish renovation of the State Capitol. However, $15 million for the project is included in a second bill (HF1068) that would spend $125 million in direct appropriations from the state’s budget surplus.

The Capitol amount as first proposed was $20 million, but the committee adopted an amendment by Rep. Jay McNamar (DFL-Elbow Lake) to take $5 million to use for economic development grants under the Greater Minnesota Business Development Public Infrastructure Grant program. (View the original spreadsheet)

Rep. Dean Urdahl (R-Grove City) expressed concern that more money is being taken from the Capitol project. “Twenty million dollars isn’t near enough anyway to do what needs to be done at the Capitol. … Obviously, something is going to have to happen here.”

“We are all committed to the completion of this, as is the governor,” Hausman said. “When we see the outcome of the supplemental budget and the tax bill to see what additional cash might be on the bottom line, we hope to fully fund what we all believe is a project that we bear great responsibility for.”