The North Dakota Legislature generously agreed to fund 80 percent of the $51 million expansion of the state's Heritage Center, if the State Historical Society of North Dakota and its foundation can raise the remaining 20 percent, or $12 million.

The SHSND foundation has $2.5 million in hand.

Where should the remaining $9.5 million come from?

A couple answers to that question recently surfaced. The foundation asked the city of Mandan for $300,000 and the city of Bismarck for $1 million.

The logic being that these two cities have much to gain from the Heritage Center expansion and, therefore, should share in the cost. Williston ponied up funds when nearby Fort Buford was improved. Medora has been asked to help with the improvements at the Chateau de Mores and the same with Carringon for the preservation of a missile silo.

While that's true, $1.3 million from Bismarck-Mandan isn't small change. Both cities have infrastructure issues and are property-tax sensitive. Taxpayers locally already feel the squeeze, so that these requests, if fully granted, would require a serious sacrifice.

Doing some rough math, Mandan City Commissioner Thomas Jackson figures it would cost the people of Mandan the equivalent of $10 a household a year for five years (about the length of time the SHSND has to raise the funds) to cover the $300,000. The Bismarck numbers are similar. Too much?

The issue for those Bismarck-Mandan households is the cumulative affect of school, park, city and county property taxes, special assessments and sales tax.

Mandan put off making a decision on financial support for the Heritage Center until August, when it better knows what its 2010 budget will look like. That only makes sense. Don't expect the Bismarck City Commission to act quickly on the request. Neither city sits on that kind of uncommitted cash.

Still there's general support for the Heritage Center expansion by members of both commissions.

Most members of the general public, when they learned about the Legislature's carrot for the Heritage Center, assumed that most of the $12 million would be coming from private sources. After all, the Legislature was awash in surplus tax collections, why put more tax bite on property owners, if only in Bismarck-Mandan? It's likely the two commissions, and possibly Burleigh and Morton counties, will contribute to the Heritage Center expansion. It may not be the same amount as requested, but what these elected officials feel their constituency will support and can afford.

Some lawmakers who supported the 80 percent funding of the Heritage Center expansion may have been playing a bit of poker, bluffing with the state's share of $51 million, expecting the original bill to be voted down or the proponents of the expansion to fail to raise the funds. So far that bluff hasn't worked, and likely will not, whether or not Mandan and Bismarck ante up.

Meanwhile, the Bismarck and Mandan city commissions need to do their homework, and determine what they can afford for this worthy project.