Minnesota has a projected $1.87 billion surplus for its next budget, and the fighting is already beginning over how to spend it.

At a hearing Monday, legislators were told how important it was to spend much more on K-12 education. On business tax cuts. On housing, mental health, people with disabilities and on filling up the state’s budget reserves.

“You all have a very, very difficult job to do,” lobbyist Jill Larson of the Minnesota Business Partnership told lawmakers. “Very many competing interests.”

Having extra money to spend this year is easier for lawmakers than having to make cuts, but total spending requests still total many times the available surplus.

On Monday morning alone, the House Ways and Means Committee heard testimony urging them to:

— Spend $875 million more for schools.

— Put more than $800 million into the budget reserves.

— Spend $400 million from the general fund on roads and bridges.

— Cut human services spending to pay for other priorities.

— Do anything but cut human services spending.

— Put $39 million to meet housing needs.

— Cut business taxes by hundreds of millions of dollars.

— Make no cut in taxes at all.

The committee took no action, but next week, it will adopt a budget resolution setting preliminary spending levels for the 2016-17 budget.

Gov. Mark Dayton on Tuesday will propose his supplementary budget, which will include at least $444 million in new spending.

Some proposals remain under wraps, but last month, the governor said he will ask for:

— $238 million for universal prekindergarten.

— $95 million for the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system.

— $50 million for child protection.

— $32.5 million more for the University of Minnesota.

His initial proposal was $42 billion for the state’s next two-year budget period.

The Senate plans to put out its own spending targets by the end of March.

Dayton is a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, as are a majority of senators. Republicans control the House. But lawmakers in both parties expect to propose less spending than Dayton.

“I would venture to say the Senate is going to propose to spend less than the governor,” Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, said Monday. “We will leave more on the bottom line.”

Rep. Jim Knoblach, R-St. Cloud, is chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, the lead budget-writing committee. He said Republicans will propose “substantially less” spending than Dayton, who he said has proposed too much spending already.

Rachel E. Stassen-Berger and Bill Salisbury contributed to this report. David Montgomery can be reached at 651-224-5064. Follow him at twitter.com/dhmontgomery.

ON THE WEB

The Pioneer Press political team will cover Gov. Mark Dayton’s supplemental budget starting at 1 p.m. Tuesday. Get the latest news at TwinCities.com.