Boost higher-ed bonding bill

—Minneapolis Star Tribune

Gov. Mark Dayton shortchanged higher education. So said Minnesota higher-education leaders and even a few Republican legislators when DFLer Dayton made his recommendations for state building projects on Jan. 17.

If higher-education leaders were unhappy in January, they must be morose now. The GOP-controlled Legislature’s bonding bids are in, and while the Senate’s gives the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) some reason for optimism, the House’s version doesn’t. And both the House and Senate bills skimped on the University of Minnesota’s requests.

The higher educators’ case for spending more bears heed. They aren’t talking about enlarging their campuses for the sake of institutional aggrandizement. Their argument is about things basic to average Minnesotans — affordable tuition and good jobs.

Take the University of Minnesota’s request to renovate its 100-year-old Old Main Steam Plant to create a modern heat-and-power facility. This project shouldn’t wait another year. The university’s World War II-era boilers can’t keep up with current demand, and one of them is slated for decommissioning in 2015. Refurbishing the steam plant and adding electricity generation has the potential for significant future energy savings. It would serve 163 buildings and protect costly research from the damage that electrical power interruption can cause.

The request for the steam plant project is $54 million, or about two-thirds of the project’s total cost. The rest would come from university funds. Dayton said yes; to date, legislators have said no.

If “no” sticks, the university has the option of paying for the entire project itself, but that would translate into higher tuition, President Eric Kaler says. “That’s too much of a burden for students to bear for facilities,” he said on TPT’s March 30 “Almanac.”

Indeed it is — especially considering that the state’s parsimony with higher-education operating funds is already driving tuition higher. Minnesota’s per-student state funding for higher education was cut almost in half in the past decade, from $10,089 per student in 1999 (adjusted for inflation) to $5,221 in 2011.

If legislators reject requests for much-needed campus capital projects, they will accelerate tuition increases and diminish the state’s economic prospects. That’s particularly true at the University of Minnesota, where quality laboratories do much to keep this state in the competitive hunt for top talent and industry-spawning innovation.

A desire to spur research has inspired previous Legislatures to authorize comparable building budgets for the two systems, even though MnSCU is larger and has campuses in more legislators’ districts. This year’s Senate bill departs from that pattern of wise political restraint, setting a worrisome precedent.

GOP legislators note that both MnSCU and the University of Minnesota benefited from an unusually large 2011 bonding bill, crafted as part of a shutdown-ending budget deal last July. But that bill’s projects included many from the 2010 bonding bill that were vetoed by a Republican governor on the verge of running for president. For higher ed, 2011 was a catch-up year; 2012 was supposed to be a back-on-track year for campus facilities.

The House and Senate bills won’t get the schools there. These bills are too small for Minnesota’s good. In fact, the House version may be too small to win the requisite three-fifths majority on the House floor.

Republican legislative majorities are eager to demonstrate that they can govern this state well. They can’t do that without passing a responsible bonding bill this year — and to be responsible, the final bill must do better by higher education than either chamber’s bill does now.

 

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