Millions of dollars are at stake for south-central Minnesota as 10 state lawmakers begin meetings to reach a compromise on where to spend nearly $1 billion in construction projects statewide.

The conference committee of five representatives and five senators will decide the fate of several area projects that are included in one bill but not the other. Many of the projects are within Senate District 23, which stretches from just south of Mankato through Nicollet County to Gaylord.

To be determined is the fate of $8.6 million in funding for a forensic nursing home at the St. Peter Regional Treatment Center to house incarcerated elderly people; a $7 million upgrade of the railroad running through Sibley County; and the first stage of what could ultimately be a $22.4 million expansion of the Mankato civic center complex.

Also up in the air are a nearly $300,000 project at the Fort Ridgely historic site, $100,000 for a museum project in Wells and $175,000 for storm-sewer improvements aimed at reducing pollution in Gaylord’s Lake Titloe.

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