Gov. Tim Walz on Tuesday proposed spending nearly a billion dollars to update the state’s roads, improve public safety and protect Minnesota’s drinking water, among many other projects.

Walz’s $982 million public works proposal comes about eight months after the Minnesota Legislature approved the largest infrastructure package in the state’s history. Lawmakers approved a $2.6 billion infrastructure bill — known around the Capitol as a bonding bill because the state typically relies on borrowed money — after a split Legislature had stalled critical public works spending for two years.

Infrastructure packages are normally passed during even years, which also happen to be election years, when candidates can brag about bringing projects home to their districts. Walz said his nearly $1 billion proposal — $819 million in general obligation bonds, the rest in other financing and cash — will move the state into “the golden age of construction and infrastructure in Minnesota.”