AUGUSTA (AP) – Ranking Republican lawmakers held a strategy session Thursday, discussing priorities they would bring to the table in upcoming talks with majority Democrats on new state borrowing.

Bipartisan meetings are expected to begin next week.

“The real negotiations will be coming,” said Sen. Carol Weston, R-Montville, the assistant GOP floor leader in the Senate.

Democratic Gov. John Baldacci welcomed what he described as a recognition of the need for putting a bond package before voters as “a step in the right direction.”

Disputes over bonding hamstrung the previous Legislature.

On Feb. 9, Baldacci outlined a proposed bond package worth $197 million, saying it could promote economic development and protection of the environment while keeping Maine’s debt burden in check.

Among its major provisions were $50 million for land acquisition and conservation, nearly $28 million for highways and bridges, including $12 million for the new Waldo-Hancock bridge, and $22 million for a statewide biomedical research and development fund.

Two weeks later, legislative Republicans urged caution.

“Bonds are not free. Bonds have to be paid back,” Senate Minority Leader Paul Davis of Sangerville said at a news conference.

The whole notion of state borrowing, however, was refocused in late March when the Democratic majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives pushed through a $5.7 billion two-year spending plan that included a $450 million revenue bonding provision that would not be subject to voter ratification.

While a Republican-backed people’s veto petition drive was under way, the state suffered downgradings of its bond rating by three Wall Street agencies in late May.

Nonetheless, state Treasurer David Lemoine said on June 8 that the sale of Maine general obligation bonds worth $137.5 million had gone off at interest rates that were lower than what he called last year’s historically low rates.

Last week, in the face of across-the-board sentiment for scrapping the revenue bonding provision in the pending state budget, Democratic legislative majorities effected passage of a replacement, netting to $250 million, that combined new spending reductions and a $1 doubling of the cigarette tax.

Scheduling difficulties have held up Baldacci’s signing, which should come next week. Meanwhile, with the Legislature adjourned, the new focus is bonds.

Timing of a special session for that debate and voting, if lawmakers can settle most differences in advance, remains uncertain.

“That hasn’t really been set,” Weston said Thursday.

AP-ES-06-23-05 1513EDT