WisPolitics panel: State surplus could put off tough choices on funding transportation 

Lawmakers and transportation experts at a WisPolitics luncheon agreed the state surplus could delay tough choices on how to fund transportation, but they expect hard decisions in future budgets. 

They also suggested one much-discussed future revenue option is unlikely for years to come: tolling.

And panelists indicated using general fund revenues in the short-term is more likely than a boost in the state’s gas tax, now at 32.9 cents per gallon. It hasn’t been increased since 2006. 

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But they acknowledged general funds may need to be used in the future. 

“Using general funds to make these long term investments in these economic corridors is not illegitimate,” Wisconsin Transportation and Builders Association President Steve Baas said. 

Wisconsin Policy Forum President Jason Stein said the state transportation revenue levels, once adjusted for inflation, are the lowest they’ve been since 1998. 

Stein pointed to a Wisconsin Policy Forum report from late last year that analyzed the state’s transportation needs. The report found current funding models with the state transportation fund may not be sustainable. 

Baas said the state transportation fund was created to be “sustainable and sufficient,” but he said it is not sustainable to maintain the same funding levels while transportation needs increase. 

Senate Transportation Committee Chair Cory Tomczyk, R-Mosinee, said state funding for transportation “should be OK” in this budget because of the surplus, but he anticipates hard decisions in the future. 

Assembly Transportation Committee member Kalan Haywood, D-Milwaukee, said lawmakers need to be careful of waiting too long to address transportation needs. 

“I think we have growing demand. But if we continue to ignore growing demand, it eventually gets higher and higher.” 

Haywood added that Milwaukee alone “definitely needs more” public transit as well as infrastructure redesign. 

Tomczyk said rural demand is different from the city, because the area is more spread out and his constituents have fewer options for transportation. He said constituents always give a sense of “what about us,” in his more rural district. 

Baas, like Haywood, said the state shouldn’t wait till the next budget cycle to address transportation funding options but admitted his industry will take what it can get. 

“Our favorite kind of new revenue is the ones that can get passed. We’re a little bit agnostic,” Baas said. “This is going to take tough decisions (but) the Legislature is capable of making them.”

Baas criticized the current system for choosing winners and losers in transportation projects. He said current revenue doesn’t allow for sustaining existing roads and bridges and working on long-term projects at the same time. 

“You’re hoping that your project isn’t the one that gets cut to make ends meet,” Baas said. “That’s a horrible strategy. That’s a horrible way to plan. It’s a horrible way to build an economy. And so what we have to do is we have to fundamentally change the system so that it’s sufficient and sustainable over the long term to fund both of them.” 

Tomczyk said “it’s a difficult path forward” in determining any budget allotments for this year, saying Gov. Tony Evers has not met with Republican leaders in some time. They last met in person March 26.

Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, has pushed for tolls in Wisconsin for years, but panelists were skeptical. 

Tomczyk said tolling affects federal funding in “a way that may make it more difficult” to implement, and said there may be other impacts that outweigh the benefits of having tolls. 

Stein said technology has made it easier to collect tolls, but big up-front and maintenance costs can be negative factors in a state’s decision about whether to implement tolls. 

“When we start on tolls, we start doing that tolling, that kind of thing affects too many other things and a return of the benefits that are needed,” Tomczyk said. “I think it’s pretty damn complicated and we don’t want to make that mistake.” 

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