House, Senate passes bonding bills

By Susan Larson | The Daily Journal

Published Friday, March 7, 2008

The House passed a $1 billion borrowing plan Thursday that would make more than $1 billion in projects possible. Although Gov. Tim Pawlenty asked lawmakers to trim it down $825 million, local legislators hope funding for the state’s libraries will make the final cut. About $2 million is the most public libraries can hope to see this session. A similar bill was passed Tuesday in the Senate.

The House passed its bonding bill 99-34 Thursday, after which it was sent to the Senate for its changes. It was slated to come back to the House around 6 p.m. Thursday, where Dist. 10A Rep. Bud Nornes (R-Fergus Falls) predicted it would be voted down, sending it to conference committee.

“That’s pretty routine” he said. “We’re going to vote not to accept it because there are too many differences — the overall size. The Senate’s (proposal) is about $100 million over the House.”

Although the conference committee will not be officially chosen until Friday, legislators unofficially began work on the final product last night.

“Libraries are still at $2 million (in the House version),” Nornes said. The money would be put into a pool and all of the state’s public libraries could apply for funds; the Fergus Falls Library could apply for up to $1 million for its expansion project. The library envisions an 11,300-square-foot addition. The extra space would allow for new programs, an increased book collection and updating the facility.

“We only got $1 million in the Senate (for libraries),” Dist. 10 Sen. Dan Skogen (DFL-Hewitt) said — far less than the $10 million we were going after.” “That’s not going to give us any building project this year.”

“Needless to say, we’re disappointed that funding for libraries has dropped so dramatically,” said Walt Dunlap, library director. “But the whole process isn’t over yet. We think we have influential supporters of that legislation in both houses, so we haven’t given up hope yet.”

The fate of the Fergus Falls Veteran’s Home is still undecided. The Vet’s Home has plans to add a 21-bed special care Alzheimer’s/dementia wing and additional space for the Veterans Affairs (VA) clinic. The project hinges on receiving federal and state money.

“The Vets Home is not in the House version, but it was in the Senate’s,” Nornes said. The Senate version calls for $2.7 million. The minimum needed is $3.4 million. “A fair amount of money is going to be needed to make (The Vets Home Project) work.”

While it didn’t have everything he hoped for, Skogen was one of 51 legislators voting for the Senate’s $1 billion bonding/borrowing plan that passed Tuesday. The Senate bill would allow the sale of $965 million in general obligation bonds for public works projects.

“I was disappointed that I didn’t get everything I wanted,” he said, “but neither did the governor.”

As an example, the bill doesn’t contain all the funding Pawlenty sought for a new state park in northeastern Minnesota. It also includes less money for local road repairs than he wanted.