North Dakota's corrections budget now includes $42 million for improvements to the main state prison but does not say how the money should be spent.

The Senate Appropriations Committee endorsed the proposal Thursday as part of a package of changes to the proposed 2007-09 budget of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The measure now goes to the Senate floor for a vote, followed by negotiations between a six-member committee of House and Senate members who will work out the details of the legislation.

"There is a lot of sentiment to do some work out there," said Sen. Raymon Holmberg, R-Grand Forks, the Senate Appropriations chairman. "I think that the conference committee will be taking a look at, what kind of construction do we want to do?"

Rep. Rick Berg, R-Fargo, the House majority leader, said the House would review the change.

"The concern that we have … is cobbling together a remodeling at the existing prison that's gone on for decades," Berg said. "If setting the money aside ties in with an efficient, long-term corrections facility that can be expanded easily in the future, then setting that money aside is positive."

Gov. John Hoeven included a $42 million construction and renovation project at the main state prison in Bismarck in his budget recommendations to the Legislature. House Republicans have repudiated the plan, favoring construction of a new prison instead.

Hoeven's proposal includes the demolition of a prison cell block, construction of a new one, and construction of other new facilities, including a laundry, medical clinic and segregation cells for prisoners who are disciplinary problems.

The Senate Appropriations Committee's action Thursday, although it sets aside money for Hoeven's preferred project, does not endorse going ahead with it. Instead, the money is put in an existing "state penitentiary land fund."

The fund is a depository for income from gravel excavation on land owned by the Youth Correctional Center in Mandan.

Its balance is now $64,000, said Allen Knudson, a budget analyst for the Legislative Council, which is the research arm of the Legislature.

Holmberg said there is almost no Senate support for the House's favored option of a new prison, and said members were "very skeptical" of Hoeven's proposal. Senators need more information about the corrections department's long-term plans for the prison site, Holmberg said.

"I think that will solve some of the problems that senators have," he said.

The bill is HB1015.