House passes state borrowing bill

02/23/2005

By Lawrence Schumacher

ST. PAUL — For the first time, a state borrowing bill containing money for the Northstar commuter rail corridor passed the House of Representatives and is headed for reconciliation with a larger Senate version.

House members approved Tuesday a bonding bill that borrows $781 million to pay for $816 million in state projects.

The vote was 121-12.

The bill is about$200 million less than a Senate version approved last month.

The Senate must take a procedural vote Thursday to reapprove its bill before leaders of the two houses can appoint a conference committee to settle differences between the bills.

Supporters and opponents of Northstar said they expect that reconciled bill to come back to the House with the $37.5 million needed to leverage federal funding for Northstar.

The House bill approved Tuesday gives only $10 million for the Big Lake-to-Minneapolis commuter train.

“The mood is there to spend some money, and I don’t see anybody coming to their senses,” said Rep. Mark Olson, R-Big Lake. Olson was the lone Central Minnesota vote against the bonding bill.

His vote was based on his opposition to Northstar and what he said were missed opportunities to look at other transit options.

Several attempts to remove the $10 million for Northstar or redirect it to other transportation options — most offered by Olson — fell by the wayside in decisive votes.

Others called Tuesday’s vote a clear message of bipartisanship.

“It was a lesson learned in the last election,” said Rep. Joe Opatz, DFL-St. Cloud. “Get things done.”

Area projects

The final House bill contained the same dollar amounts for St. Cloud-area projects as it started out with, including money for replacing the Sauk Rapids bridge, adding on to St. Cloud Technical College, renovations at St. Cloud State University and money for regional parks and natural areas.

“I think we have more than $30 million in this bill for area projects, which is a pretty good amount,” said Rep. Jim Knoblach, R-St. Cloud, a member of the House Capital Investment committee that assembled the bonding bill.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty said Tuesday he hopes the Legislature will act quickly to deliver a reconciled bonding bill to his desk.

He also said full funding for Northstar is “of similar importance” to money for a University of Minnesota-Mayo Clinic biomedical science facility, without which he has repeatedly threatened to veto the bonding bill.

Next steps

Pawlenty’s leadership will be important in getting all sides to agree on a final bill, said Opatz, who also serves on the House Capital Investment committee. But he predicted the House would approve full Northstar funding regardless.

“The strong rejection of the amendments to kill Northstar suggests that the full $37.5 million is doable,” he said.

A larger debate could arise about the bill’s final price tag. Every $100 million in additional borrowing requires debt service payments of $12 million every two years, Knoblach said.

“Clearly there will be compromise between the House and Senate. The final bill will be bigger than what we just passed,” he said.

“I just hope it’s not much bigger.”