The current budget assumes $225 million in bonding this year and the state doesn’t have the resources for additional debt service unless the next budget forecast — scheduled to come out mid-March — calls for another surplus.

Odd-year bonding bills tend to be in the $200 million range, although recent odd-year bills were as large as $500 million in 2011, and as low as $156 million in 2013.

In announcing the package, Gov. Mark Dayton argued that the state's positive budget forecast makes the business-to-business taxes unnecessary.

Meet Sarah Clarke, of the Minnesota State Colleges Student Association.

It was four minutes to midnight on the final day of session when the Minnesota Senate passed the omnibus tax bill that wrapped up the Legislature’s work on the state’s $38 billion budget for the 2014-15 biennium. The down-to-the-wire finish followed a contentious final two weeks of negotiations between House, Senate and the governor’s office over the terms of final budget and policy deals.

The House passed a higher education finance bill that increases spending by $250 million and freezes tuition for two years on 76-56 vote on Friday. Just three Republicans voted for the bill, sponsored by Rep. Gene Pelowski, DFL-Winona.

The Senate passed a higher education finance bill that includes $250 million in additional funding and a tuition freeze at the state's public colleges and universities by a 44-22 vote on Friday. Six Republicans joined all DFLers in voting for the measure.

House Capital Investment Chairwoman Alice Hausman is calling for an $800 million bonding bill this session that would take a big bite out of the Capitol restoration project and invest heavily in civic centers and construction projects on college campuses across the state.

Gene Pelowski pulled out his iPad on the first day of session and went straight to YouTube. The incoming Democratic chairman of the House Higher Education Finance and Policy Committee likes to pull up the same video clip for anyone who comes into his office to ask for something: the famous opening scene of the Marx brother’s 1932 movie “Horse Feathers.”

In a pair of interviews with Capitol Report, the Minnesota Legislature’s new leaders talk about budget priorities, tax code changes, bonding, and their short list of policy priorities for 2013.