Senate Capital Investment Committee Tours CLC

CLC President Hara Charlier led a tour of the Brainerd campus today for members of the Senate Capital Investment Committee.

“We’re honored to have our colleagues from the Senate here to take a look at Central Lakes College and all of the improvements we would like to make, and how we plan to take care of what we have with asset preservation,” said Charlier.

It started off with some basic information about the college and its role in Brainerd.

“I’m always excited about Central Lakes College, it’s such an intricate part of our community,” said Senator Carrie Ruud (R), District 10.

Then, they moved on to demonstrate the higher education asset preservation requests.

“So that we are not investing in significant repair over time and we don’t have damage to our buildings because we really believe in caring for what we have,” Charlier said.

There are three project priorities on both the Brainerd and Staples campuses that total just over $7.5 million.

“They’re not very exciting, but they are absolutely critical,” said Charlier. “We have a significant roofing project here in Brainerd, another significant roofing project on our Staples campus and a number of air handlers and air conditioners that we really do have to replace.”

Central Lakes College is requesting just under half of a million dollars to help with renovations of their student services center.

“We can create an even more welcoming environment for our students, easier to see where to go and put our student support services both on the student side and the academic side right in the hands of the students,” Charlier said.

It’s an idea that Senator Ruud is passionate about.

“We want to do better for them because our students are changing, the careers are changing, and so our college needs to change, too,” Senator Ruud said.

Those ideas will be taken into consideration with all other priority requests from around the state.

“We on the Capital Investment Committee have decisions to make,” said Senator David Senjem (R), the Senate Capital Investment Committee Chair. “We’ve got $3.5 billion worth of requests and have probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $700 to $800 million in our bill, so not every project is going to be funded.”

The committee still has many more stops to prepare for the 2018 legislative session.