GOP deal delays major freeway work
Budget committee set to approve charge on hybrids, limits on city streetcars
MADISON – The Legislature’s budget committee was poised late Tuesday to approve a GOP package that would delay two massive road projects in Milwaukee County, put limits on the city’s streetcar line and impose a $75 surcharge on hybrid vehicles.
Among the projects that would be delayed are the north leg of the Zoo Interchange and the section of I-94 between between the Zoo and Marquette interchanges. Other projects around the state would be pushed back as well.
The sweeping, 20-page plan would also curb the ability of local governments to regulate quarries and cut 200 jobs at the Department of Transportation.
Details of the plan were disclosed Tuesday ahead of what is expected to be a marathon session by the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee to complete a two-year state spending plan this week.
Leaders of the budget committee also hoped to adopt a tax proposal Tuesday or Wednesday that would scale back the personal property tax charged to businesses for their equipment and furnishings. But Republicans were still deciding whether to drop Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed sales tax holiday for backto-school purchases and whether to loosen regulations on rent-to-own stores, leaders of the committee said.
Wrapping up the budget this week would set the stage for floor votes next week.
The transportation package would include up to $402 million in borrowing for transportation over the next two years. Borrowing for roads has divided Republican lawmakers for months and the amount they settled on is well below what has been included in recent budgets.
Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills), a co-chairwoman of the budget committee and a key negotiator of the deal, said it was “short-sighted” not to move forward with the major Milwaukee projects, calling them essential to the state’s economy.
“I am disappointed about the I-94 East-West,” Darling said. “It’s so critical to our economic development.”
That project is expected to cost more than $1 billion.
Republicans control all of state government but lawmakers were unable to
approve a budget by the July 1 start of the fiscal year because of differences over transportation and tax cuts. State funding has been continuing at levels set in the last budget.
The package includes a grab-bag of policy and projects:
» Milwaukee could not use a tax incremental financing district to pay to operate its planned downtown streetcar line. It also could not use state transit aid to operate or build the streetcar line.
» Work on the north leg of the Zoo Interchange in Milwaukee County would be banned, but a 7.5-mile stretch of section of I-94 on the other side of the state, in St. Croix County, would be approved.
» The state would spend $2.5 million to study tolling – much as it spent $1 million in the last budget to look into the issue. » Local governments would be barred from regulating quarries, such as those used by roadbuilders to collect gravel. They would continue to have the ability to regulate sand mines, despite a move by some to take that power away from them.
» The state’s prevailing wage law would be eliminated. That law requires government contractors to pay road builders and construction workers minimum salaries that typically match union wages. GOP lawmakers scaled back that law in 2015 and now plan to eliminate it. Those working on many Wisconsin road projects would still continue to receive union-scale wages, however, because of a federal law that requires minimum salaries for building projects that include federal funding.
» The Department of Transportation would have to cut 200 jobs. The move comes four years after the Walker administration and lawmakers agreed to hire 180 engineers because they found it cost less to use state engineers to design projects than contract with private engineering firms. Now, many, if not all, of those engineering positions could be cut as the department sheds staff.
» The Department of Transportation would be required to study installing traffic lights at W. Layton Ave. and S. 124th St. in Greenfield and put up signs for the Bergstrom Waterfowl Complex in Outagamie County, Shoreland Luterhan High School in Kenosha County, Soldiers Walk Memorial Park in Arcadia and the Town of Lawrence in Brown County.
The biggest budget difference among Republicans has been over transportation funding. Senate Republicans wanted to borrow more than $700 million for roads over the next two years, but Assembly Republicans wanted to eliminate or sharply limit borrowing for roads.
To bring in some new money, Republicans decided to double the annual fee charged on hybrid vehicles, from $75 to $150. The registration fee for electric vehicles would rise $100, to $175.
The fee for most gaspowered vehicles would remain unchanged at $75 a year.
Revenue from the new fee — about $8 million over two years — would be used to support some of the $410 million in borrowing over the next two years.
The GOP plan leaves a gap between how much the state will take in and the cost of the projects the Department of Transportation hopes to build. That means some projects will be delayed, said Pat Goss, executive director of the Wisconsin Transportation Builders Association.
“It’s not going to add up when factoring in all the costs associated with this program,” he said.
Michael Minkoff, whose family owns wholesale liquor distributor General Beverage, said that the uncertainty
over the highway construction had led his business to delay expansions on Madison’s southwest side that could have led the company to expand its 300-person work force.
“It’s really been a huge cost operationally and a nightmare logistically,” Minkoff said.
Another provision would bar local governments from enforcing ordinances that conflict with the letter or spirit of state laws. Sen. Jon Erpenbach (D-Middleton) said the measure was so broadly written that it would greatly constrain the powers of local officials.
“I don’t know why we have city councils anymore,” he said. “Don’t know why we need county boards. Don’t know why we need town boards.”
The GOP proposal would also beef up the powers of the state Transportation Projects Commission so it could independently review the work of the Department of Transportation.