By Dan Sparks, State Senator

When we began the 2008 legislative session in February, there was worry that the challenge of solving the $935 million budget deficit facing the state through 2009 would overshadow all other goals we hoped to accomplish this year. I am very pleased that in the end we were able to work together to not only solve the budget gap but deliver on important promises such as property tax relief, transportation improvements and health care reform.

The session wrapped up just before midnight on May 18. The only way we were able to end on time was with a clear focus on bipartisanship, compromise and cooperation. It&8217;s what voters have been asking for, and I&8217;m glad we were able to accomplish our task.

In the end, not everyone got everything they wanted, but that&8217;s how true compromise works.

On the property tax front, the tax bill took a three-pronged approach to deliver property tax relief: more money into homeowner property tax refunds, cap property taxes at the local level for the next three years, and increase funding to local governments to help them absorb these new levy limits. About 73,000 homeowners will see increased property tax refunds with the new money, and the new maximum refund available will increase from the current $1,810 to $2,300.

The property tax cap will limit local governments from raising property taxes more than 3.9 percent in each of the next three years. This was one of the governor&8217;s initiatives, and something legislators were unwilling to accept without an infusion of money in the local government aid and county aid programs.

It&8217;s unfair to ask cities to limit property tax increases unless the state is willing to pitch in to help them meet basic services. After all, local property taxes are about the only way cities and counties have to pay for things like police and fire relief. That&8217;s why there are &8220;special levies&8221; built into this bill, which will allow cities to exceed the 3.9 percent cap if they need to hire new police officers or firefighters.

I&8217;m very hopeful that together, these and the many other property tax-related provisions in the tax bill will finally deliver the property tax relief that Senate Democrats have been pushing for the past several years.

A health care reform package also was passed near the end of this legislative session. It&8217;s a comprehensive bill that reflects the work of bipartisan working groups that have been meeting on the topic for the past year.Under the plan, 12,000 working Minnesotans will get access to affordable health care, and health care costs across the board are expected to be reduced by about 15 percent.

There&8217;s clearly much work left to be done on the issue of health care, but this bill takes the first major steps toward pursuing reform we all know is needed to rein in costs and increase accessibility.

Of course, the bonding measures I&8217;ve mentioned before are big successes of the 2008 session. Edgewater Park and Riverland Community College are just a couple of the benefactors of this comprehensive job-creating bill.

The transportation funding bill passed early in the session is credited with accelerating many local road- and bridge-improvement projects in our district, in addition to dozens of others around the state. With the extra money that the Department of Transportation has needed for so long, the department has been able to move up several of its slated projects to this summer&8217;s construction schedule.

This is just a sampling of the bills that passed this year. I hope you feel free to contact me with any question about these or other pieces of legislation.

Dan Sparks, DFL-Austin, is the state senator for District 27. His column appears every other Sunday during the legislative session.