MANKATO — A shutdown could slow a Mankato hospital’s various expansion and construction projects.
Kevin Burns, a spokesman for Mayo Clinic Health System, said the hospital’s $29.5 million renovation of its emergency room needs state inspectors to review concrete and rebar, and Department of Health inspectors need to review expansion plans for the hospital’s specialty clinic and heart center.
Department of Labor and Industry inspectors were supposed to be in early this week inspect concrete work. And next week, state electrical inspectors were slated to walk through and inspect all the wiring installed so far.
"It does reach a point where we cannot work on that particular aspect of the project until those inspectors give us clearance," Burns said. "There is other work going on in that project, but we may get to a point where the lack of these inspections will force delays in other aspects of the project that had not been affected so far."
The Republican-controlled Legislature and Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton remain at an impasse over how to proceed with a new budget, and the shutdown started July 1. Republicans want to hold spending to whatever revenue is brought in. Dayton and Democrats want to increase revenue by raising income taxes on Minnesotans earning more than $1million annually.
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Mayo broke ground in 2010 on the Mankato campus emergency department expansion that will double the existing space, produce more jobs and enhance the patient-care experience.
Mayo has expansion projects in Rochester and Austin as well; it was unclear Friday how those would be affected.
