Schools, transit top Pawlenty wish list

01/18/2006

Schools, transit top Pawlenty wish listGovernor offers $897 million construction bonding bill; St. Paul shut out

BY BILL SALISBURY
Pioneer Press

Gov. Tim Pawlenty proposed an $897 million state construction program Tuesday to fund everything from new college classrooms and prisons to commuter and light-rail lines and the Minnesota Zoo.
The price tag would make Pawlenty’s plan the third-highest capital budget in state history. “This is a year to have a good-size bonding bill,” he said during a briefing.

The bill is virtually certain to grow. The chairmen of the House and Senate capital investment committees, Republican Rep. Dan Dorman of Albert Lea and Democratic Sen. Keith Langseth of Glyndon, predicted the Legislature would boost the size of the construction program by $100 million to $150 million.

Some of the big projects Pawlenty recommended include:

• $128 million for repairs and new classrooms at the University of Minnesota.
• $143 million for Minnesota State College and University buildings and facilities.
• $60 million to complete the Northstar commuter rail line from downtown Minneapolis to Big Lake.
• $21 million to upgrade the Minnesota Zoo.

“This is a reasonable size bill. We’ve got an improving economy. We’ve got needs,” Pawlenty said. “By any but the most grotesque standards, this is a big enough bill.”

Most of the projects would be funded by borrowing $811 million through the sale of state-backed bonds to investors, to be repaid over about 20 years. The rest of the construction money would come from user fees, highway revenue and the state general fund.

The Republican governor offered $2.5 million for the most sought-after East Metro project: the $840 million Central Corridor transitway for either light-rail trains or high-speed buses between downtown St. Paul and downtown Minneapolis. The Metropolitan Council had requested $10 million for that project, and the Ramsey County Regional Railroad Authority asked for $50 million.

Central Corridor light-rail proponents were pleased with Pawlenty’s recommendation, even though they wanted more money. Rafael Ortega, chairman of the Ramsey County Railroad Authority, praised the governor for funding the project but said corridor backers would “be advocating for what we need over the next two, three years.”

Pawlenty indicated that he’s willing to spend more on the project but that he’s waiting for completion of a federal study on whether rail or bus would work best in the corridor.

“It’s a very promising corridor,” he said, “but it’s not yet ripe for a larger investment.”

The city of St. Paul was shut out on the state subsidies it sought. Pawlenty rejected the city’s requests for $20 million for a bioscience corridor, $10 million for Como Zoo and $12 million for the Ordway Center.

St. Paul had plenty of company. The governor recommended funding just $13 million of the $485 million requested by local or regional entities. He said many of the requests were for sports facilities, art centers and regional convention centers.

One local project that received the governor’s blessing was the Port Crosby cleanup in his hometown of South St. Paul. He proposed granting $1.5 million of the $4.5 million the city requested to convert the former landfill on the Mississippi River into a regional park.

Pawlenty said he recommended the project because it was scheduled to be funded last year when Senate President James Metzen, DFL-South St. Paul, agreed to delay it to cut costs.

Fort Snelling and the state Capitol — two historic state landmarks in need of renovation — would get little and nothing, respectively, under the governor’s plan.

He proposed allocating $1 million of the $23 million the Minnesota Historical Society requested to convert the deteriorating Fort Snelling cavalry barracks into a museum and visitor center. He said that money would enable the society to start designing the new museum.

Although Pawlenty turned down the Capitol Area Architectural Board’s request for $26 million to renovate the deteriorating east wing of the Capitol, he said, “I support that project.” The problem, he said, is that it would displace the senators who have offices in that wing for many months, and “they’re not ready for that yet.”

He wants to find other temporary space for Senate offices before starting the project.

“There’s no question it is needed,” he said.

The governor recommended the Apple Valley-based Minnesota Zoo receive $21 million of the $26 million it requested. The money will go to replace and update infrastructure and to remake the zoo’s entrance.

“What we call the heart of the zoo has a lot of needs for upgrades and improvements,” zoo director Lee Ehmke said. “This would go a long way toward getting us there.”

New stadiums for the University of Minnesota football team and the Minnesota Twins were not included in the capital budget because they will be handled in separate bills. Pawlenty endorsed both projects.

He predicted that the Gopher stadium bill is “going to be considered and passed this year,” and that the Twins ballpark measure “should be considered and passed … because there’s a realistic chance that if we don’t act in the next year or two we will lose the Twins.”

He urged the Minnesota Vikings to wait another year or two before pushing for a new stadium.

Legislative leaders generally characterized Pawlenty’s budget request as, in the words of Rep. Alice Hausman, DFL-St. Paul, a “very good starting point.”

But Hausman, the lead Democrat on the House Capital Investment Committee, and Langseth and Dorman, the bonding committee chairmen, agreed state colleges and universities need substantially more money than Pawlenty requested for repairing and replacing aging buildings — even though he asked for $270 million for higher education facilities, far more than any other part of the budget.

Langseth predicted the DFL-controlled Senate would support borrowing $965 million, the maximum allowed under state bonding guidelines, to fund about $1.4 billion in construction projects. Dorman said he expects the Republican-run House to pass a bonding bill of about $900 million.