Southeast in $350 million bond proposal

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Southeast Missouri State University would get $23.4 million to renovate its science and mathematics buildings under a higher education capital improvements plan being considered by a Senate committee.

What began as a proposal for the state to sell $190.4 million in bonds to develop life sciences facilities at the four campuses of the University of Missouri system has ballooned into a $350 million bonding plan with the addition of construction projects at eight other state institutions. The requirement that projects be connected to the life sciences has been dropped.

Senate President Pro Tem Peter Kinder, the original bill's sponsor, said he is comfortable with the bill's expansion.

"I had always contemplated adding a bill for Southeast and the other regional schools," Kinder said.

With interest rates at historic lows, Kinder said the proposal's price tag remains realistic. The bonds would be sold this summer, but the state wouldn't start paying them back until 2008. A portion of Missouri's financial settlement with the tobacco industry for the social costs of smoking would be earmarked to the debt payments.

Senate Appropriations Committee chairman John Russell, R-Lebanon, had planned to call a vote on the bond authorization bill Wednesday, but committee members wanted more information on the list of 14 projects to be funded before proceeding, even though the projects will be set in separate legislation. The committee plans to revisit the matter on March 29 after the Department of Higher Education has evaluated the projects.

Southeast's share of the bond revenue would upgrade laboratories, classrooms and general infrastructure at Johnson, Magill and Rhodes halls.

As the process continues, state Sen. Bill Foster expects more universities will try to attach projects, driving up the cost and hurting chances for passage.

"I anticipate that before this is over, it will be expanded more," Foster said. "Just the weight of it might kill it."

The bill is SB 1221.

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