MN House passes $1.9 billion infrastructure bill

Bill Salisbury, Pioneer Press
·6 min read

The Minnesota House voted Monday to spend more than $300 million to repair and improve state college and university facilities, $250 million to fix the state’s aging local roads and bridges and $174 million for state parks, trails and other natural resource infrastructure.

Overall, the House approved a total of $1.9 billion for infrastructure improvements — by borrowing $1.53 billion through the sale of bonds and spending another $393 million in cash for the projects.

The House had to pass two separate infrastructure bills because it takes a 60 percent supermajority to pass a bonding bill, which meant the 70-member DFL majority needed at least 11 Republican to pass the borrowing bill. The measure passed on a 91-43 vote.

The smaller, cash-only bill only required a simple majority, and it sailed through on a 90-38 vote.

Not a done deal

But funding for public works projects, such as roads and bridges, sewer and water systems and repairing older buildings, is far from a done deal. Leaders of the Senate Republican minority reiterated they would not vote for a bonding bill until lawmakers first pass tax cuts.

“How can we, in good conscience, go back to the taxpayers with a historic, nearly $18 billion surplus and put $2 billion on the state’s credit card and not give a penny of your hard-earned dollars back,” Republican Sen. Karin Housley of Stillwater, the GOP lead on that chamber’s bonding committee, asked at a Capitol news conference.

The Senate DFL majority would need at least seven Republican votes to pass a bill to increase the state’s debt.

Senate GOP Minority Leader Mark Johnson of East Grand Forks said Republicans want to pass a bonding bill, “but we are very concerned that the tax cuts get through as well,”

Updating infrastructure

The DFL chairman of the House Capital Investment Committee, Rep. Fue Lee, of Minneapolis, said the bonding measure was basically the “product of a bipartisan framework” that leaders of the two parties agreed to but failed to pass before the Legislature adjourned for the year.

The infrastructure package the House passed Monday would match the record-setting $1.9 billion bonding bill passed in 2020. Lawmakers have not passed another public works bill since then.

“We are overdue in updating some of our infrastructure,” DFL House Speaker Melissa Hortman of Brooklyn Park said before the vote. The bonding portion of the package takes care of “the unfinished business of the 2022 legislature,” she said.

Hortman said House DFLers intend to pass a second, 2023 bonding bill later this session.

U of M, Minnesota State would get largest shares

The University of Minnesota and the Minnesota State college system would get the largest share of the bonding money under the House bonding bill: $132 million to the U and $180 million for Minnesota State.

Most of that funding would go for “asset preservation” or fixing and remodeling college buildings, $40 million at the U and $45 million at the other state colleges.

The U also would get the largest single allocation: $92.6 million to build a new chemistry undergraduate teaching laboratory on its Minneapolis campus.

The state money would cover one-third of the cost; the U would have to tap its own sources for the remaining costs.

Other projects in House package

Other big winners under the House package include:

• The Department of Transportation which would receive $245 million, most of it for local road and bridge projects.

• The Public Facilities Authority which would be allocated $235 million, primarily for waste water and drinking water projects.

• The Department of Natural Resources would get a $174 million allocation, mainly to fix the buildings and other structures it already owns, replace deteriorating facilities, make flood-control improvements and upgrade dams around the state.

• The Metropolitan Council would receive $109 million with $72 million earmarked for bus rapid transit projects.

East metro projects

The House bill would fund dozens of east metro projects, including:

• $78 million to replace administrative and residential buildings at the Minnesota Veterans Home in Hastings.

• $25 million for a new Minnesota National Guard readiness center in Rosemount.

• St. Paul would receive an additional $25 million for the Third Street/Kellogg Boulevard bridge project.

• Minnesota Zoological Garden, $18 million, most of it for asset preservation.

• St. Paul would receive an $8 million grant to design a Mississippi River Learning Center in Crosby Farm Regional Park.

• St. Paul Park would get $7 million to construct its Third Street Collector Roadway.

• The bill provides a $6.2 million grant to Ramsey County to acquire property and design the proposed Park at Riversedge in downtown St. Paul.

• St. Paul would receive a $6 million grant to construct a North End Community Center.

• Dakota County would receive $5 million to acquire land and construct the Veterans Memorial Greenway between Lebanon Hills Regional Park and the Mississippi River.

• Dakota County also would receive $5 million to improve the Minnesota River Greenway.

• Ramsey County would get $5 million to extend the Bruce Vento Regional Trail in the northern suburbs.

• Inver Grove Heights would get $5 million to reconstruct 117th Street.

• The Department of Administration would get $4.5 million to demolish the historic Ford Building on University Avenue near the
Capitol.

• White Bear Lake area communities would receive $3.6 million for a paved trail in Ramsey and Washington counties.

• The 30,000 Feet Technical Training Center in St. Paul would get $3.5 million for renovation and expansion.

• The Harriet Tubman Center East in Maplewood would be allocated $3.4 million for a renovation project.

• St. Paul would receive $2.5 million to renovate the Conway Recreation Center.

• St. Paul also would get $2.4 million to construct the Waka Tipi Center in the Lower Phalen Creek Project.

• Keystone Community Services would receive $2.3 million to build a new community food site in Ramsey County.

• Oak Park Heights would receive $2.2 million to redevelop the Allen S. King power plant site in the city.

• The Ain Dah Yung Center would receive $2.2 million to provide an emergency shelter and youth lodging in St. Paul.

• Inver Grove Heights is in line for $2 million for developing the Heritage Village Park.

• Mendota Heights would receive a $1.8 million grant to improve the Pilot Knob historic site overlooking the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers.

• The Irreducible Grace Foundation would receive $1.5 million to design housing for youth and young adults in St. Paul.

• Apple Valley would get $1.4 million to construct an “inclusive and accessible playground.”

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