Editorial: Biosciences buildings are a must this year

Even in tight budget year, university project deserves support.

Last update: March 4, 2008 - 6:53 PM

"A bill like this is very painful," Capital Investment Committee chair Alice Hausman confessed Tuesday to the Minnesota House Finance Committee about the difficult decisions that went into crafting one of this year's prize pieces of legislation, the bonding bill.

It's always so. With more than $4 requested for every $1 the Legislature can authorize, the disappointment of rejected pleaders for building projects weighs on legislators. But this year's bill is provoking more than the usual angst, for at least two reasons:

• This bill is the vehicle carrying the state's best hope for leadership in the emerging biosciences industry -- and that feature's design has run into worrisome opposition.

Via his finance commissioner, Tom Hanson, Gov. Tim Pawlenty has served notice that he won't go along with the separate bonding track for four major bioscience research buildings at the University of Minnesota, as spelled out in the House and Senate bonding bills. Pawlenty, who says he continues to support the project, wants to treat those buildings as any other in the bonding process -- even though precedent for a separate approach that skirts the state's self-imposed bonding limits was set just two years ago, for the new Gopher football stadium.

"One time is an exception. Twice is an end-run around our policy," Hanson said Tuesday. He worries about the potential for others to propose to issue their own bonds, and convince the Legislature to pay their debt service, as the biosciences plan envisions.

But surely, if the stadium qualified as an exception to usual practice because of its extraordinary significance, the same can be said for facilities intended to be the birthing place of a major new high-wage industry. And surely the governor understands the political reality that's behind the university's request for a separate bonding track. At $233 million, this project would consume so much of this year's state bonding capacity that dozens of legislators' smaller pet projects would be squeezed out.

Seldom will today's legislators have a better opportunity to set the table for the state's economy in 2025 and beyond. Pawlenty and legislators should recognize that the biosciences proposal is unique -- and essential.

• The size of the bonding bill has become another headache. After last week's forecast of reduced state revenues and enactment of a transportation bill that included $60 million in general-fund financed bonds, Hanson said the bonding bill must shrink. He called for a trim from the expected $965 million to $825 million.

Nevertheless, in bipartisan fashion, legislators are charging ahead at the $965 million level. Eleven Republicans joined 40 DFLers in giving the Senate's bill preliminary approval yesterday.

Yesterday's maneuvers could come back to bite legislators later, if they invite Pawlenty to put a sizable number of approved projects on hold. Legislators are already well aware of the disappointment they cause when they say no to building projects. They might think that authorizing the higher amount will force the governor to play the heavy. But in the process, they'll damage their own credibility.

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