Testifiers offer mixed reviews for $980M bonding bill

A day after state lawmakers unveiled a nearly $1 billion bonding bill for public works improvements, project advocates made their case Tuesday for everything from local roads to suicide prevention barriers on the Washington Avenue pedestrian bridge at the University of Minnesota.

Testifiers at Tuesday’s meeting of the House Capital Investment Committee took turns at the lecturn to praise the $980 million bill for funding their projects or, in many cases, to complain that the measure doesn’t go far enough to address needs such as deferred maintenance.

The committee didn’t act on the bill Tuesday but is expected to take a vote Wednesday morning. Requiring a three-fifths majority for passage, bonding needs to get buy-in from both sides of the aisle.

As negotiations play out, the final bonding bill could be significantly smaller. Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson, R-East Grand Forks, has been “publicly stating something more along the lines of $850 million,” Laura Ziegler, director of Highway/Heavy and Government Affairs for the Associated General Contractors of Minnesota, said in email.

Ziegler added that the House bill “heavily focuses on asset preservation that various state agencies oversee, and it wouldn’t be surprising if we see more discussion around specific local projects in the coming weeks. Expect plenty of negotiation in these final weeks on the total number and specific allocations.”

Rep. Dean Urdahl of Grove City, the Republican lead on the House Capital Investment Committee, said Monday that the Legislature’s work is just beginning.

“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,” Urdahl said.

At issue is House File 5220 , which includes $64 million each to the University of Minnesota and the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system for asset preservation, $65.5 million for the Department of Natural Resources, and $302.7 million for “library construction grants” a placeholder for local projects.

Other highlights include $12 million for Capitol Mall improvements, $48 million for a new Bureau of Criminal Apprehension regional office and laboratory in Mankato, $37.7 million for local bridge replacement, $16 million for a remodel of Building 16 at the Minneapolis Veterans Home, $60 million for Department of Corrections asset preservation, $57 million for the Public Facilities Authority, $32 million for public housing rehabilitation and $15 million for a Minnesota Zoo animal hospital.

Asset preservation for the Department of Corrections is “transformational in its recognition of the return on investment for rehabilitative services. It’s historic in the investments in our crumbling infrastructure. This is an investment in public safety outcomes for Minnesota,” said Paul Schnell, commissioner of the department.

MJ Weiss, whose daughter Kayla died by suicide last November from a public structure at the University of Minnesota, spoke in support of the $64 million allocation for U of M asset preservation. The money includes installation of suicide prevention barriers on the Washington Avenue Bridge.

“My battle is to secure funding for these barriers and my promise to Kayla is that no other person loses their life to a bridge we know we can make safer,” Weiss said.

Other testifiers called on the committee to dig deeper into its pockets.

Emily Murray, representing the Association of Minnesota Counties, said she’s “disappointed” that the bill doesn’t include funding for the Local Road Improvement Program.

In 2023, the Minnesota Department of Transportation received 378 applications requesting a combined $417 million for local roads, Murray said. Funding appropriated last session totaled $103 million, which covered 86 projects, she said.

Murray added that local agencies have requested $282 million in state money for 948 “priority” bridge replacement projects over the next five years. The total construction cost is $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 come to a dramatic reduction.”

Similarly, University of Minnesota and Minnesota State Colleges and Universities officials told the committee that funding for higher education asset preservation falls well short of the needs, and a representative of the Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities said the bill doesn’t do enough for clean water infrastructure.

As part of a $57 million allocation to the Minnesota Public Facilities Authority, the bill offers a $39 million match for federal grants to the State Revolving Loan Program, $10 million for the emerging contaminants loan program, $8 million for the water infrastructure funding program, $4 million for drinking water grants, and $4 million for clean water grants.

Elizabeth Wefel, a lobbyist for the Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities, said the state created clean water funding programs because it recognized that “if it was asking local governments to invest millions to protect the state waters, often to solve problems that they didn’t create that the state is going to help step forward and relieve that burden.

“Yet this bill seems to break that promise just as the expectations imposed on wastewater facilities particularly have increased.”

Rep. Fue Lee, the Minneapolis DFLer who chairs the committee, said some of the items not reflected in bonding proposal were funded in last year’s “historic” infrastructure package. But he also cautioned project backers not to get their hopes up too high as the bonding process moves forward.

“I think that there will be further disappointment as we continue to move in the process. 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, the $980 million in GO borrowing,” Lee said Tuesday.

Urdahl, the Republican lead, said the process of creating a bonding bill is difficult.

“It was a hard process last year when we basically were raining money. It’s a whole different endeavor this year,” Urdahl said at Tuesday’s meeting. “I would hope, as I have been saying pretty much every day for the last week, that very soon we can have a number that we can work with and know which direction we can go.”

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