ST. PAUL – A rail grade separation project near Glenwood is among provisions in a capital investment package featuring $825 million in general obligation bonds the Minnesota House approved on Monday.
More than two-thirds of the bonding is dedicated to bricks-and-mortar projects, such as roads and bridges, water infrastructure and statewide asset preservation. The bill also features a component to use excess reserves from the Vikings stadium account to fund construction of veterans homes in Bemidji, Montevideo and Preston.
“Improvements on roads and bridges are a major focus of the House and a number of projects in the bonding bill we approved fall into those categories,” said Rep. Paul Anderson, R-Glenwood. “I came away with a good feeling when the bonding committee toured the site of our Highway 55/Highway 29 separation project by Glenwood and it is good to see this project is in the House’s bill.”
The bonding portion of the bill includes:
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$364 million for asset preservation such as state-owned buildings
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$120 million for road and transportation infrastructure
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$153 million for water and conservation projects
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$188 million for “other” projects, such as:
With funding such as trunk highway bonds included, the bill provides an additional $254 million for transportation, another $10 million for water/conservation and $127 million in other funding for a total of $1.2 billion.
The bill provides $26 million in funding for the construction of veterans homes in Bemidji, Montevideo and Preston through the same funding mechanism proposed in the House’s omnibus state government finance package. The reserve account for the Vikings stadium is running an excess, expected to reach $58 million by the end of the current biennium and grow to $120.2 million at the end of next biennium. This bill would allocate a portion of that funding for constructing veterans homes in each of the aforementioned cities.
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