Capital Bonding:
The conference committee on capital bonding, chaired by Senator Langseth and Representative Hausman, just completed their work late yesterday afternoon. The omnibus bill provides full funding for the University’s $22 million HEAPR request and it funds the first building project in the Biomedical Sciences Research Facilities Authority legislation—717 Delaware—for $14.4 million or 80% of the cost of the project. However, the facilities authority is not included in the bill.

The bill appropriates a total of $135 million in general obligation bonds and it spends $164 million in cash. The cash is part of the surplus of one-time dollars. The Governor’s bonding bill contained approximately $70 million in general obligation spending. The Governor’s staff testified at the conference committee that the Governor would veto the entire bill or most of it, unless the spending in this bill is part of an overall agreement between the legislative leaders and the Governor on spending for the entire state budget. Since there has been no agreement, it is assumed that the Governor will indeed veto most, if not all, of this bonding bill once it reaches his desk. The House and Senate are expected to vote on the conference committee report on Friday. We should know the final outcome early next week.

If the Governor does follow through with this threat, it is assumed that the legislature will create a second bonding bill before the end of the session. We will continue to work with legislators on the Biomedical Sciences Research Facilities Authority with hopes that it could be included in this final bonding bill.

Higher Education Funding:
The conference committee has now met twice to work out the differences between the House and Senate bills and they will continue to meet this week. It is expected that the committee chairs will be given a spending target by the House and Senate leadership on Friday. Once they know how much they can spend, the real work of compromise will begin. President Bruininks is scheduled to testify before the conference committee on Friday to make one last public case for funding the University. It is expected that this committee will have a compromise bill early next week ready for the final floor votes.

Other Legislation:
Stem cell legislation passed the Senate floor yesterday. The companion bill is on the House floor awaiting a vote. All of the other issues that we are following in omnibus bills are in conference committees. We expect with the conference committee versions will have floor votes and be sent to the Governor beginning next week.

The Veto:
The Governor has the power to veto an entire bill or he can veto individual appropriations in a bill—is called a line-item veto. What he cannot do is line-item veto specific language without vetoing the entire bill. As these appropriation bills are sent to the Governor, many are predicting that the Governor will use his veto authority.

This all makes for some interesting last weeks of the legislative session!