After 19 days of unwanted world attention, Minnesota’s historic state government shutdown is on track to end today.

The Legislature started cranking out a series of budget bills needed to restart government operations Tuesday after Gov. Mark Dayton called lawmakers into special session to approve the tax and spending measures he negotiated with Republican legislative leaders.

As soon as Dayton signs the bills, state parks and highway rest stops will begin reopening, Minnesotans can once again get driver’s, fishing and occupational licenses and 22,000 laid-off state employees will begin returning to work.

The shutdown began July 1 when the state ran out of appropriations because Dayton, a Democrat, and the Republican-controlled Legislature failed to agree on a budget. GOP lawmakers wanted to hold spending at $34 billion, the amount of projected revenue collections for the next two years, while Dayton insisted on $1.4 billion more in tax increases to prevent deep cuts in programs and services.

On Thursday, the two sides reached a tentative agreement, which involved borrowing $1.4 billion from school districts and selling bonds to be repaid with future tobacco settlement revenue. It took them five more days to reach a final deal Tuesday morning.

The House and Senate convened shortly after 3 p.m., and both started on somber notes with a moment of silence for the late Sen. Linda Scheid, DFL-Brooklyn Park, who died June 16. The two chambers then recessed for Democratic-Farmer-Labor and Republican caucuses so members could learn more about what is in the bills and GOP leaders could persuade reluctant rank-and-file members to support them.

The public was in the dark on many of the measures. When the session started, only seven of the 12 bills scheduled for votes were posted on the Legislature’s website.

When lawmakers returned to the House and Senate floors shortly after 6 p.m., they quickly passed six of the 10 tax and spending bills that make up the budget. Most bills sailed through largely on party-line votes with little debate.

Still to come were three highly contentious spending bills to fund K-12 education, health and human services and state agencies. The House passed a controversial tax bill late Tuesday night.

Here’s a look at the bills passed by the end of the day:

Higher education

The bill, which passed the Senate 35-30 and the House 71-57, adds $60 million in general fund money for higher education over what Republicans approved in May, but it’s $180 million less than what Dayton wanted.

Overall, state funding of higher education is down 9 percent compared with the previous biennium.

The University of Minnesota winds up with $1.1 billion, $50 million more than the conference committee bill. That leaves the U with 10 percent less than it got the past two years and 15 percent less than the forecast amount.

New U president Eric Kaler said some of the $50 million would go toward lowering tuition – now set at a 5 percent increase for resident undergraduates – and some toward restoring programs. He said he wasn’t sure whether a proposed wage freeze would remain.

Even with the additional money, state support for the U is down to what it was in 1998, Kaler said. He plans to present an amended budget to regents in September.

The new bill also removes language banning use of public money to support human cloning, a change Kaler said would prevent a possible “chilling effect” on U biomedical research.

The bill provides an additional $10 million for the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system over what Republicans passed in May.

The $1.1 billion appropriation for MnSCU is an 11 percent cut from current allocations and a 13 percent cut from what was forecast.

The bill drops the cap of 5 percent the first year and 4 percent the second on tuition increases at MnSCU universities. A 4 percent cap remains for the 2012-13 school year, instead of a 3 percent cap both years.

MnSCU adopted a budget last month calling for tuition increases of an average of nearly 4 percent at the colleges and 5 percent at the universities.

Spokeswoman Melinda Voss said the MnSCU board of trustees is not expected to redo its budget and tuition rates based on the new bill.

She said that during the first year of the biennium, MnSCU will get less than it did in 1999 but will serve 51,000 more full-year-equivalent students.

Among two Republican senators voting “no” was the bill’s sponsor, Senate President Michelle Fischbach, who said she was “very disappointed” the cloning language was removed.

It was, she said, “legislation that we should have kept in this bill.”

Tax bill

House Republicans achieved their main goal for the session by passing a tax bill 71-57 (the Senate had not yet voted late Tuesday) that helps erase a projected $5 billion budget deficit without increasing taxes. They did so at a high price.

To provide the additional revenue Dayton demanded, they agreed to borrow up to $640 million by selling tobacco bonds that would be repaid from money the state gets as part of a 1998 court settlement with tobacco companies. DFLers criticized the GOP for piling future debt on the state.

The tax bill extends for two more years cuts in local government aid that were passed in 2010 to erase a previous budget deficit. That means cities will receive $203 million less in state aid over the next two years than they would have had the cuts been restored.

But House Republicans dropped their proposal to phase out aid to Minneapolis, St. Paul and Duluth over the next three years.

Instead, those cities will be treated like other municipalities.

Republicans also backed off proposed sharp reductions in property tax relief for renters, and they provided an additional $30 million for homeowner tax relief.

Nonetheless, DFLers warned that the cuts in aid to local governments would result in $376 million in property tax increases over the next two years.

The bill orders the state revenue commissioner to negotiate a new income tax reciprocity agreement with Wisconsin so taxpayers who live in one state and work in the other once again can file a single state income tax return.

Public safety and judiciary

The bill, which passed 57-7 Senate and 77-51 in the House, would give state courts a slight budget increase and restore cuts to the 911 emergency telecommunications fund, battered women’s programs and crime-victim services.

The Human Rights Department, meanwhile, would see almost all of its proposed funding cuts restored. Dayton had proposed $6.7 million for the department, but Republicans opted for only $2.3 million.

They finally agreed on $6.3 million, a 5 percent cut instead of 65 percent.

In addition, a provision that would have allowed short-term state prisoners to serve remaining time in county jails instead of prison was dropped.

Environment and energy

The bill, which funds such state agencies as the Pollution Control Agency and the Department of Natural Resources, would get state parks operating again.

A Senate position from April removing a five-year waiting period before gray wolves could be hunted once they are removed from federal protections was retained.

The state expects to take over wolf management within the year.

The bill also would weaken clean-water protections, including permit requirements for feedlots and phosphorus standards in heavily polluted Lake Pepin.

The bill passed the Senate 43-22 and the House 71-57.

Transportation

About half of earlier Twin Cities bus and rail budget cuts would be restored.

They had been pegged for a $109 million budget cut, from Dayton’s proposed $129 million to $20 million. But bill negotiators eventually agreed to a $78 million budget, still well below this biennium’s spending level.

By tapping into other funding, the Metropolitan Council says it would be able to maintain transit service at current levels without a fare increase.

The bill passed the Senate 38-27 and the House 71-56.



Jobs and economic development

This $251 million bill funds a wide variety or job programs in the departments of Employment and Economic Development and Labor and Industry and the Housing Finance Agency.

Republican legislators voted in May to scrap the Minnesota Trade Office, one reason Dayton vetoed their bill. The revised measure restores trade office funding at $1.5 million a year.

The bill passed the Senate 42-23 and the House 76-50.



Legacy

The bill would fund outdoors habitat, clean water, parks and trails and arts initiatives with money raised though a Legacy Amendment sales tax increase.

Negotiators dropped a provision that would have weakened open-meeting requirements for the Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council, which recommends how

to spend a third of that money.

The Senate passed the bill 63-0, the House 98-30.



Bonding bill

In an 11th-hour deal, the Legislature was poised to pass a $498 million public works bill that funds everything from a state-of-the-art nanotech lab and an Asian carp-blocking dam to flood-control projects and development of Minnesota’s newest state park.

Republicans had resisted passing a bonding bill during the regular session, but Dayton insisted on borrowing that sum to pay for projects that will provide jobs for laidoff construction workers.

“This will put a lot of Minnesotans to work,” said House Capital Investment Committee Chair Larry Howes, R-Walker.

The largest single appropriation in the bill is $51 million for an $80 million physics and nanotechnology building at the University of Minnesota, a project that U officials said will help educate the science workforce of the future.

Other large projects funded in the bill include:

$42 million for a science and engineering lab at St. Cloud State University.

$16 million for reconstruction of the Coon Rapids dam, which is intended to prevent Asian carp from infesting

the Mississippi River upstream.

$50 million for flood-control projects.