AUGUSTA (AP) – A second round of negotiations among Democratic and Republican legislative leaders Thursday left the two sides planning to meet again next week, with participants from both parties saying an effort to reach a compromise on state borrowing was progressing.

Majority Democrats suggested that talks to date had produced a tentative ceiling on aggregate new bonding of about $100 million.

House Majority Leader Glenn Cummings, D-Portland, pegged the overall Republican offer somewhere around $75 million, with major items under discussion including public land acquisition, highways and support for research and development.

“Obviously, both sides are very close. There seems to be a good working relationship,” Cummings said after ranking Democrats and Republicans from the Senate and House of Representatives met on and off for a couple of hours Thursday afternoon.

“We’re negotiating. We’ve gone back and forth and we’re going to meet again Monday,” said Senate Minority Leader Paul Davis, R-Sangerville, without detailing discussions.

The two sides were “making progress,” added Assistant House Minority Leader Josh Tardy, R-Newport, with decisions still to be made “with the numbers and the priorities,” according to Assistant Senate Minority Leader Carol Weston, R-Montville.

Assuming that the negotiators are able to make a deal or to get close enough for the bargainers to agree that a special session is warranted, lawmakers on both sides said the House and Senate rank-and-file could be summoned to the State House at the end of the month.

Cummings said a late July special session could be expected to deal virtually exclusively with bonds, which would require super majorities of two-thirds for passage before being sent on to statewide referendum in November.

“I don’t think we’re in a position to handle other issues,” he said.

Cummings, however, also said that a July special session on bonds would not preclude another special session later that could be devoted to what is generally described within the Legislature as tax reform – a possible overhaul of Maine’s system of income, sales and property taxation that was left hanging when the House and Senate adjourned last month.

“I think you’re going to see that happening in the fall,” Cummings said.

Legislative leaders opened discussions about a special session on bonds last week.

The subject of traditional borrowing was initially broached in February when Gov. John Baldacci outlined a proposed package worth $197 million. Its major provisions included $50 million for land acquisition and conservation, nearly $28 million for highways and bridges and $22 million for a statewide biomedical research and development fund.

In the ensuing months, consideration of bond proposals was relegated to the Legislature’s back burner, in large part overshadowed by a dispute about non-voter-approved revenue bonding that eventually was scrubbed from the new state budget.

“I think things are moving along decently,” Senate President Beth Edmonds, D-Freeport, said Thursday.

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