AUGUSTA – Ranking Republican lawmakers held a strategy session Thursday, discussing priorities they would bring to the table in coming talks with majority Democrats on new state borrowing.

Bipartisan meetings are expected to begin next week.

“The real negotiations will be coming,” said Sen. Carol Weston, R-Montville, the assistant GOP floor leader in the Senate.

Democratic Gov. John Baldacci welcomed what he described as a recognition of the need for putting a bond package before voters as “a step in the right direction.”

Disputes over bonding hamstrung the previous Legislature.

On Feb. 9, Baldacci outlined a proposed bond package worth $197 million, saying it could promote economic development and protection of the environment while keeping Maine’s debt burden in check.

Among its major provisions were $50 million for land acquisition and conservation, nearly $28 million for highways and bridges, including $12 million for the new Waldo-Hancock bridge, and $22 million for a statewide biomedical research and development fund.

Two weeks later, legislative Republicans urged caution.

“Bonds are not free. Bonds have to be paid back,” Senate Minority Leader Paul Davis of Sangerville said at a news conference.

The whole notion of state borrowing, however, was refocused in late March when the Democratic majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives pushed through a $5.7 billion two-year spending plan that included a $450 million revenue bonding provision that would not be subject to voter ratification.

While a Republican-backed people’s veto petition drive was under way, the state suffered downgradings of its bond rating by three Wall Street agencies in late May.

Nonetheless, state Treasurer David Lemoine said on June 8 that the sale of Maine general obligation bonds worth $137.5 million had gone off at interest rates that were lower than what he called last year’s historically low rates.