» State budget:

Money would help cover road funding shortfall

A per-mile fee on heavy trucks might haul the stalled state budget to its destination, top GOP leaders say.

MADISON - A fee on heavy trucks might haul the stalled state budget to its destination, top GOP leaders say.

Speaking to reporters Thursday, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said his GOP caucus generally supported the idea of putting a per-mile fee on the kinds of heavy trucks that in general do more damage to roads.

Vos said he had discussed the idea with Gov. Scott Walker and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) as a way to break a stalemate over how to help cover a shortfall in road funding in Wisconsin. The trucking fee might be used for temporary funding while putting in place a more complex tolling system, the speaker said.

“We didn’t talk about what level per mile,” Vos said of the discussions with Assembly Republicans. “We didn’t talk about exactly who generally would be affected. We talked about the general concept because that’s the discussion that I’ve had with the governor and Senator Fitzgerald.”

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel first reported two weeks ago on the heavy truck fee as one way to resolve the state budget standoff.

Fitzgerald said Tuesday the heavy truck fee was a non-starter with his Senate GOP caucus, but after meeting with Walker and Vos on Wednesday the Senate leader told the Wisconsin State Journal and Associated Press that Republican senators would consider the idea, after all.

A spokesman for the governor had no comment Thursday, but Vos unexpectedly praised Walker Thursday for being “pragmatic.”

“People compromise and they find ways to get to yes, and I think that’s to Governor Walker’s credit,” Vos said.

The heavy truck fee still faces formidable opposition from the state’s largest business lobby, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce. WMC’s head of lobbying, Scott Manley, said manufacturers would rather see a small but broad increase in the gasoline tax.

“A tax on employers that make and grow things in the state to pay for the transportation budget will inevitably be passed onto everyone in the form of more expensive consumer goods,” Manley said in a statement.

Another powerful conservative group, Americans for Prosperity, also scrambled to oppose the fee — showing how quickly the proposal had moved from a curiosity to a real possibility among GOP leaders.

Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling (D-La Crosse) was also skeptical of the truck fee and its effects on businesses and consumers.

“Republicans haven’t answered any of these questions,” she said in a statement.

Assembly Republicans have looked at raising taxes on gasoline to help pay for highways and hold down borrowing, but Walker and many Senate Republicans oppose increases in gas taxes or registration fees.

If Wisconsin officials approve a truck fee instead, the state would join Kentucky, New York, New Mexico and Oregon in placing a per-mile fee on the kinds of heavy vehicles that haul most commercial and consumer goods.

The fee or tax could be implemented cheaply and without federal approval — a contrast to the big investment and congressional sign-off that would be required to implement the toll roads also being considered by Republican lawmakers and Walker.

Rep. Amy Loudenbeck (R-Clinton), who first floated the truck fee, said she’s working on getting good data and more specifics for the proposal.

“I’m trying to solve the problem,” she said of road funding.

There are about 274,500 heavy vehicles — those weighing more than 8,000 pounds — registered in Wisconsin, according to a Legislative Fiscal Bureau memo to Loudenbeck. When combined with heavy trucks from out of state, these over-sized vehicles travel billions of miles on Wisconsin roads each year.

If Wisconsin adopted Kentucky’s 2.85cents-per-mile fee, it could generate many tens of millions of dollars over a two-year state budget. It would take time to implement.

But tolling would take even more time and money to implement. That’s because tolls require some combination of tolling plazas, electronic card readers and coin machines that cost millions of dollars a year to operate.