Lawmakers nail down bonding bill, aim to finish on time

(AP) - Legislative negotiators struck a deal late Friday on a billion-dollar construction budget, clearing a path to an on-time finish to this year's session.

The $1 billion capital bonding bill contains a laundry list of construction projects around Minnesota. Talks on the bill proceeded haltingly the last few days, and the deal came only after a 10-hour session in Gov. Tim Pawlenty's office.

The bill's completion brings resolution to one of the last outstanding issues of the 2006 legislative session, which has already seen deals on stadiums for the Twins and Gophers, and a framework for spending and tax relief.

"Earlier today I thought it wasn't looking good at all," said Sen. Keith Langseth,, DFL-Glyndon, the Senate's chief bonding negotiator. Langseth and his House counterpart, Rep. Dan Dorman, R-Albert Lea, had clashed repeatedly in recent weeks over details of the project list.

Hopefully everybody learned their lesson and wants to be more constructive and positive. We have to find some compromises, focus on the doable and move ahead for the good of the state.

Last-minute sticking points included funding for an expansion of the state prison in Faribault and events centers in Bemidji and Marshall, all of which got funding; and another events center in Duluth, which didn't.

The voluminous bill will take hours to be drawn up and printed, and both Dorman and Langseth said it probably wouldn't be ready for votes in the House and Senate until after midnight Sunday morning. Lawmakers are shooting for a 7 a.m. Sunday finish.

In other Capitol business, conference committees delved into the details of modest tax relief for married couples and lockups for sex offenders.

Legislative leaders and Pawlenty reached an overall agreement for $202.5 million in new spending and $202.5 million in tax cuts, after a state Supreme Court ruling earlier this week on a disputed cigarette fee gave them some fiscal breathing room.

Pawlenty said the 2006 session was on track to be "very, very productive." Last year, partisan disagreements over the budget led to an eight-week special session and forced parts of state government to shut down for eight days in July.

"Hopefully everybody learned their lesson and wants to be more constructive and positive," the GOP governor said. "We have to find some compromises, focus on the doable and move ahead for the good of the state."

House and Senate tax negotiators agreed to eliminate a tax penalty that hits half a million married couples. But the relief would be relatively small - adding up to a total of $60 million. The panel still had about $140 million of the $202.5 million in tax relief to allocate.

Senate Taxes Committee Chairman Larry Pogemiller, DFL-Minneapolis, and his House counterpart, Rep. Phil Krinkie, R-Lino Lakes, said they didn't have enough money for property tax relief - a priority for both houses and Pawlenty.

Instead, Pogemiller said the focus had shifted to shielding middle-income taxpayers from a tax code wrinkle known as the alternative minimum tax, which about 40,000 Minnesotans owed for 2004, according to the Department of Revenue.

Krinkie also proposed using about $110 million to assume some education costs now covered by school districts.

One floor up, the spending conference committee worked on a bill that would increase funding to keep up with a growing number of dangerous sex offenders confined to locked state treatment facilities.

But the negotiators were still in disagreement on early childhood items, salary increases for the Department of Human Services and a genomics project.

One product of the session takes effect Saturday: Local governments will find their power to seize private property for redevelopment projects severely restricted under the bill Pawlenty signed into law on the Capitol steps Friday.

Under the new law, cities, counties and townships can take private property for another private owner only if the property is environmentally contaminated or extremely blighted.

On a lighter note, the House approved a bill designating the Honeycrisp apple the state's official fruit, sending it to Pawlenty's desk for approval.

(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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