» Transportation funding:
Move would shift money from state’s main fund
Gov. Scott Walker says he’s working with Republican lawmakers to shift money from the state’s general fund to its transportation fund to help solve Wisconsin’s road funding woes.
Gov. Scott Walker on Monday latched onto the possibility of funneling money from the state’s main account toward highways to try to help solve Wisconsin’s road funding woes.
Walker has vowed to veto any gas tax increase and on Monday downplayed the possibility of raising vehicle registration fees.
Instead, he told reporters he was working with his fellow Republicans in the Legislature to shift money from the state’s general fund to its transportation fund.
His comments opened up the possibility of a deal on transportation that has eluded Republicans for months, and a top legislative leader said he believed a proposal on funding roads would be made public in a couple of weeks.
The general fund is made up of collections from income taxes, sales taxes and a host of other taxes and fees and is used to fund schools, the University of Wisconsin System, health care for the poor and elderly and numerous other programs. The transportation fund consists of gas tax and registration fee collections.
“I’ve said repeatedly in my meetings with the (Assembly) speaker and the Senate majority leader that I think we can free up some more money, looking at general purpose revenue in the state budget and some other areas we think we can save on,” Walker told reporters.
Sen. Jon Erpenbach (D-Middleton) said in an interview that taking money from the general fund would likely hurt schools, the university or social safety net programs.
“The answer is not taking money away from our classrooms,” Erpenbach said.
Others have opposed putting more general fund money into the transportation fund because it can be hard to sustain in an economic downturn. They argue highways should have a dedicated funding source backed with user-based taxes and fees.
Walker made his comments as the Transportation Development Association of Wisconsin held a forum at the Milwaukee Athletic Club featuring officials from states that have recently approved road funding packages. In interviews, those officials advised against using general taxes for highways because it would force road projects to go up against schools in every budget cycle.
“A pothole does not compete with a kid’s education. You’ll lose every time,” said Ed Soliday, a Republican floor leader in the Indiana Legislature who helped shepherd a road funding package through that state’s General Assembly last week.
When transportation is funded with general tax money, road projects will “get elbowed out every time,” said Seth Millican, who helped win approval for increased funding for highways in Georgia as the executive director of the Georgia Transportation Alliance.
In Wisconsin, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) have both said they’re open to using general funds for transportation, though Vos has focused his attention on using transportation money for roads.
“I think we are on the cusp of a solution, I really believe that,” Vos said at the transportation forum in Milwaukee.
Vos said he tasked Rep. Dale Kooyenga (R-Brookfield) to fashion a plan on transportation that meets all the criteria of his caucus.
“Look for every saving first,” Vos said. “Find ways to prioritize our spending. And then ultimately see what we need to raise in revenue to be able to help solve this problem.”
“He has worked on this very diligently and I am optimistic in the next week or two we’ll be able to announce a package of reforms, potentially revenues and prioritization, that will meet the criteria that Gov. Walker set last summer,” Vos said.
Vos added, “Whatever Gov. Walker says from day to day, that doesn’t matter. I just try to stick with what he told me last year. Because it’s easier to have one priority and work from that than to take somebody who’s kind of changing their mind on a regular basis.”
“So, for me, I look and say, he told me that if we reduce revenues in the general fund, he’s OK with increasing revenues in the transportation fund as long as they are a net zero or a decrease. So that is what we have been operating under,” Vos said.