REGIONAL – House members in St. Paul were set to vote Wednesday on a $980 million bonding bill that aligns with the priorities established by Gov. Tim Walz in January, but work on a final bill for the governor to sign is far from over as intense debate is expected to continue in conference committee with the Senate over the size and scope of the measure.
With state and local agencies requesting around $7.6 billion for infrastructure improvements, a level of disappointment was a foregone conclusion for this session’s bonding bill. Requests from local governments alone soared 102 percent this year over last, totaling $2.92 billion, according to Management and Budget Commissioner Erin Campbell.
The largest single allocation in the bill is $302.7 million currently parked under the heading of “Library Construction Grants” for the Department of Education that in actuality represents a set-aside for an unfinalized list of local projects, with about half the money expected to go to projects supported by Republican lawmakers.
“For the librarians who think that they have hundreds of millions of dollars and are doing cartwheels — sorry, about that. Probably not going to happen,” said Rep. Dean Urdahl, R-Grove City, in a Tuesday committee hearing.
Walz’s proposal set preservation of state-owned assets as a major priority, and the House bill follows suit, with $256.9 million allocated for these activities, representing about 25 percent of the total bill. The University of Minnesota and Minnesota State college system would each receive $64 million that would go to facility improvements, and $32 million would go to fund improvements at the state capitol complex.
Clean water
Clean water is another area where the funding doesn’t match the expressed need.
The bill calls for $57 million for the Public Facilities Authority, of which $39 million is a state match to acquire federal funds for clean water purposes, and $10 million would be targeted at a grant program to mitigate the impact of contaminants such as manganese and a group of chemicals known as PFAs. However, even the governor didn’t get what he wanted in the bill, as Walz had requested $109 million for the agency.
Another $4 million allocated to the Pollution Control Agency is earmarked for drinking water contamination mitigation. Six million dollars designated for the Board of Water and Soil Resources would indirectly impact water quality in the state through a program that would encourage landowners to retire environmentally sensitive land from agricultural production.
Corrections
The bill proposes $114 million for the Department of Corrections to address critical needs in its crumbling infrastructure. Sixty million dollars is designated for asset preservation, while two DOC locations, Rush City and Lino Lakes, would receive a combined $54 million to expand programming and space for the 2,000 inmates housed at those facilities.
Local roads ignored
While the bill provides $45.7 million from a combination of general-obligation bonding and trunk highway bonds for major local bridge replacement and port development, there’s no allocation in the bill for the Local Road Improvement Program. Emily Murray, representing the Association of Minnesota Counties, warned committee members that localities are falling farther and farther behind addressing critical needs.
Murray pointed out that local agencies have requested $282 million in state money for 948 “priority” bridge replacement projects over the next five years with a combined estimated construction cost of $740 million. The remaining local bridge replacement program fund balance, Murray said, “is anticipated to run out by mid-summer, and replacement of local agency bridges will face a dramatic reduction.”
According to Murray, MnDOT received $417 million in requests for 378 local roads projects in 2023, but the Legislature’s appropriation of $103 million covered only 86 of those projects.
Other items
Other proposed appropriations include:
• $65.5 million for the Department of Natural Resources, including $30 million for its Betterment of Buildings program;
• $48 million to construct a Bureau of Criminal Apprehension office and lab in Mankato;
• $32 million to rehabilitate public housing;
• $31 million to the Metropolitan Council, with nearly half going toward inflow and infiltration projects;
• $28.86 million to the Department of Veterans Affairs, including $16.05 million to renovate a building at the Minneapolis Veterans Home and $12.8 million for asset preservation;
• $20.27 million to the Department of Human Services including $12.26 million for asset preservation and $8 million to construct early childhood centers;
• $15 million to construct a new animal hospital at the Minnesota Zoo;
• $12 million to the Pollution Control Agency.
House Capital Investment Committee Chair Rep. Fue Lee, acknowledges that cuts to the bill are likely as the bonding process moves ahead.
“I think that there will be further disappointment as we continue to move in the process,” Lee said at the hearing. “We have caucuses here in the Legislature who may not want to even work on a bill the size that we have in front of us.”
With a bonding bill requiring a three-fifths majority vote to pass in both legislative chambers, the DFL will need to curry support from Republican legislators in order to craft a final version that can be sent on to Gov. Walz.