politics

Touting job creation and higher education, key DFL legislators unveiled a nearly $1 billion public works proposal that spends more than favored by Gov. Tim Pawlenty but also rejects funding for some of his priorities.

The House bonding bill provides $246 million for Minnesota state colleges and universities, more than twice what Pawlenty proposed. It also would outspend the governor on metro transit and fund work on civic centers and arts projects rejected by the governor.

While the House bill is nearly a third larger than Pawlenty's, it lacks his single biggest funding initiative: expansion of a sex offender treatment facilities. Pawlenty wanted $89 million for it.

In justifying the larger bill, Rep. Alice Hausman, DFL-St. Paul, who heads the capital investment committee, said that "he one bright spot in a bad economy is interest rates are low and bids are coming in low."

Pawlenty's office did not react immediately to the House bill.

Senate DFLers were expected to reveal details of their bonding bill later today. Hausman and Sen. Keith Langseth, DFL-Glyndon, chair of the Senate bonding committee, said the bills are very similar.

Pawlenty last month proposed a $685 million bonding bill that he called "affordable, responsible and appropriate.'' It rejected local proposals included in the DFL House plan, such as $28 million to expand the Mayo Civic Center in Rochester.

The DFL-led Legislature can send Pawlenty a bigger bonding bill, but the governor can line-item veto parts of it or reject the entire package.

DFLers plan to fast-track their legislation so that it passes both chambers by the middle of this month, a timetable they say would allow work to begin as soon as spring thaw.

Hausman said her bill doesn't provide money to double the capacity of the sex offender treatment program at Moose Lake because legislators of both parties doubt its value. Offenders in a civil proceeding are committed indefinitely to the program after serving prison time, and Pawlenty's administation said it needed more beds to accommodate more commitments.

But Hausman suggested that the Legislature might reconsider the program and the law allowing for such civil commitments.

In selling their more expensive bonding proposal, DFLers have cited fiscal analysis that shows that the debt service on a $1 billion bill would cost no more in 2010 than the debt payments on a more typical major bonding bill of $725 million. But the cost would rise, and by 2015 the debt service on a $1 billion bill would be about $82 million more than the typical bonding bill over the same time.

Pat Doyle • 651-222-1210