Ventura slashes $357 million from bonding bill
Robert Whereatt and Patricia Lopez
Star Tribune
Published May 23, 2002
Gov. Jesse Ventura, who earlier characterized himself as "the Samurai governor" who would cut the capital improvement bill to size, used his terrible swift sword Wednesday to lop off $357 million from the $979.1 million measure.
The cuts were seen as draconian by some, but Ventura said they were necessary because the Legislature had not properly balanced the state budget and so jeopardized the state's credit rating.
"They ought to look in the mirror before they point fingers at me," he said in an interview with the Star Tribune.
The hurt will be felt in every corner of the state, from higher education, which lost nearly $100 million for projects, to parks and trails and environmental efforts throughout Minnesota.
Falling to his blade were such high-visibility attractions as the Guthrie Theater ($24 million), the Minneapolis Planetarium ($9.5 million), the Como Park Conservatory in St. Paul ($2.7 million) and a new Asia exhibit at the Minnesota Zoo ($8.2 million).
Because legislators passed the bonding bill in the waning hours of the 2002 session, they forfeited their opportunity to override the governor, who has the right to make the line-item cuts.
Ventura said he tried to keep the bonding bill to "fix and repair" projects, eliminating anything new.
Had legislators balanced the budget through 2005, as he requested, Ventura said, he probably would have approved a bonding bill of $750 million to $800 million.
"Had they balanced the budget in what I consider a prudent and good manner, they wouldn't face this," he said. As it is, he said, "maybe I didn't cut enough."
That prompted a stinging reply from Senate Majority Leader Roger Moe, DFL-Erskine, who called the vetoes "the last damage Governor Jesse Ventura can do to the long-term good of Minnesota."
Moe, a gubernatorial candidate, said the vetoes demonstrated "no vision for the future of the state" and were based on "petty, vindictive politics." (The bonding bill did not include one of Ventura's top priorities: funding for the Northstar commuter rail project.)
Moe called Ventura's rationale regarding the budget "flimsy," saying the administration has the ability to let out bonds for capital improvement projects more slowly, thus controlling the amount of debt the state incurs.
Rep. Jim Knoblach, R-St. Cloud, said he thought Ventura had gone "much too far" in his vetoes. "I thought there were worthwhile higher education projects in there, and environmental projects that everyone agreed on," he said. His own district took a hefty loss: $10 million for the remodeling of St. Cloud State University, and $3.2 million for a convention center design.
But St. Cloud was far from alone. Moorhead lost $5.5 million for a performing arts center, while Winona missed out on $3.5 million for port improvements. In Rochester, an arts center for $1 million and a national volleyball center for $3 million bit the dust.
Also eliminated was $2.9 million for a natural resources project in the Red River Valley. And a series of planned trails were cut.
Ventura cut $48.3 million for the University of Minnesota, nearly half of the money earmarked for research centers. He trimmed $50.7 million from the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system.
Ventura also cut $4.3 million for renovation of the governor's residence in St. Paul. He ordered it closed earlier this year because he said budget cuts forced reductions in the security force at the mansion.
Ventura said he will meet with staff members today to plan the reopening of the residence. The Legislature's final budget bill restored money for operating the building.
Of the planned renovations, Ventura said, "It needs to be done, certainly, but when you're delaying everything else, how can I go ahead with this?"
Ventura said one of this tougher decisions was the $8.1 million cut to the Minnesota Zoo's planned Asia exhibit. "I like the zoo," he said. "Plus, they got a new head guy out there that knows what he's doing. He's got a vision. But I had to be very difficult on anything new."
And while he has said in the past that funding of arts projects was not necessarily the role of government, he said Wednesday that projects such as the Guthrie were, in fact, regionally significant.
The Guthrie, he said, "brings in a lot of money, it adds a fabric to our community." However, he said, the overall bonding bill was simply too large given the state's economic picture. Even after the Legislature's budget fix, the state still faces a $1.4 billion projected deficit for 2004-05 and has only a few hundred million dollars in reserves.
Ventura said the cuts were not targeted to punish legislators for their actions, including the House's decision not to include money in the bonding bill for the Northstar commuter rail project.
"I don't even know where half the representatives represent," he said. "There wasn't a name that even came up. I don't operate that way."
Not all legislators saw it that way.
"It was a vengeful act of retaliation because the governor did not get his way on Northstar, and his original budget [balancing] proposal that was dead on arrival," said Sen. Doug Johnson, DFL-Tower.
Johnson said the projects were needed to stimulate the state's slumping economy. If Ventura had concerns about the 2004-05 budget, he said, he could have delayed some projects.
"In my mind, it was a case of the governor's nose being out of joint," Johnson said, "and when you're the governor of the state, that's not how you should act."
Knoblach, who is chairman of the House Capital Investment Committee, said that for all Ventura's talk about transportation, he vetoed the only road money in the bill -- $10 million for highway projects and $10 million for regionally significant local routes.
Indeed, no transportation funding bill of any kind was passed by the Legislature or survived the governor's cuts.
Knoblach said the $24 million research facility for the University of Minnesota scrapped by Ventura would have fetched $12.5 million from an anonymous private donor.
"Gee, you hate to lose a donation like that," he said. "I have no way of knowing if that donation is going to be available in a year or two or not. Some of these projects are going to be done sooner or later, but now inflation will cause them to cost more than the debt service we will save," he said.
The Northstar factor
In large part, projects that survived the veto pen were already underway and needed some money for completion, Ventura said.
He also approved asset preservation funding -- money to renovate, preserve or fix up buildings. Higher education, for example, got $90 million for asset preservation.
The House-passed bonding bill checked in at $839 million and the Senate's at $1.2 billion. The House-Senate conference committee compromise from which Ventura worked on his cuts totaled $979.1 million.
In January, the governor proposed a capital projects bill of $845 million. But in February, an economic forecast projected a $2.4 billion deficit for 2002-03 and a $3.2 billion shortfall for 2004-05. Ventura said his bill should be pared, though he never submitted a list of what he would cut.
One item he wanted to preserve was Northstar, a passenger train that would run 82 miles from downtown Minneapolis to the St. Cloud area along existing freight rails.
House Republicans adamantly opposed the line. The Senate included $8 million in its bonding bill for it, but finally dropped the issue to reach an agreement with the House last week.
Ventura, who has not yet confirmed whether he will seek reelection, said he is unconcerned by potential political fallout.
"I'd do the same thing, whether I'm running or not running," he said.
"After almost three years of doing this job I'm not going to change who I am. I'm not going to let the system change me. I'll tell it to you straight. Let those chips fall as they may."
-- The writers are at [email protected] [email protected]
― Dan I. (Dan I.), Thursday, 15 April 2004 18:59 (twenty-two years ago)
three years pass...