JEFFERSON CITY – Gov. Jay Nixon today signaled support for a massive new state building project that would require voters to approve hundreds of millions of dollars in state bonds.

In a letter to lawmakers, Nixon said that the state’s capital building process has “broken down” over the “past several administrations,” leaving the state in need of many new public buildings at a time when interest rates are low.

That collision of events was the thinking behind a proposal this year pushed by Democrat state Rep. Chris Kelly of Columbia and Republican floor leader Steve Tilley of Perryville to ask voters to approve $700 million or more in bonds for university and other state projects.

Nixon offers support for that plan in his letter, and he tells lawmakers “we have no time to lose.” That’s because terms of the federal stimulus proposal could help the state pay for the projects, but there’s a deadline on using the federal money.

The timing of the letter is a further signal from Nixon that he expects to make hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts in the budget approved by the Legislature, and many of those cuts might be building projects. One of the larger building projects is a cancer center for Ellis Fischel Hospital in Columbia that has been a political hot potato for several years.

The letter also gives an indication that Nixon may want to bring lawmakers back to the capital city to come up with a new building plan.

Asked whether a special session was on the horizon, Nixon spokesman Jack Cardetti said, “Over the next month or so the governor will be meeting with leaders to see if a bipartisan consensus can be reached on what the smartest way is to address our state’s capital needs. Decisions such as timing will be part of those discussions.”

House Speaker Ron Richard, R-Joplin, said Nixon called to talk to him about the letter today. Richard said he supports the bonding program as long as it doesn’t threaten the state’s credit rating and can be accomplished without a tax increase. Nixon agrees with both issues in his letter.

“It seems like a reasonable request to me,” Richard said. “I think it’s a good way to put people back to work. But I gotta find out what the final number is.”

The last version of the bonding proposal under consideration in the Legislature was for more than $800 million.

The original version was focused mostly on university building projects, but various state building projects were added along the way. Richard said that Nixon told him he might want to add highway projects to the proposal as well.

Ultimately, voters would have the final say because such a large bonding project would have to be approved by them.

During the session, Kelly argued that the state is about to pay down bonds from a similar building project passed under the leadership of Kit Bond when he was governor, and that the state should be able to apply the amount of money already budgeted for those bonds to a new building project.