Senate OKs transportation borrowing

State budget now goes to Thompson

[Reprinted from the Wisconsin State Journal. -Ed.]

By Richard Eggleston
Associated Press

A compromise $2.95 billion transportation budget that doesn't raise gasoline taxes but instead borrows money for a wide range of highway projects won state Senate passage Thursday.

The 1995-97 budget, stalled for months during wrangling over whether to boost the gas tax, now goes to Gov. Tommy Thompson for signing.

The compromise was hammered out by a six-member conference committee Monday and passed by the Assembly Tuesday. The Senate passed it 21-11 despite criticism that it relies too heavily on increased indebtedness.

It provides for $258 million worth of new highway construction to be financed by borrowed money over the two-year budget period that started July 1. It also increases the state's bonding authority for major highway projects by $172.8 million to reach that level.

That total includes $40 million added by the conference committee to offset an expected cut in federal highway money.

The budget provides for the completion of a four-lane Highway 29 across central Wisconsin from Green Bay to Chippewa Falls by the end of the year 2000, with the $32.8 million coming from borrowed money.

State Sen. Fred Risser, D-Madison, said Wisconsin already has $660 million in transportation revenue bonds outstanding, and it is paying $67 million a year in interest on them. He said that was more than enough.

"Don't we learn anything when we look at the mess in Washing ton? This is Reaganomics being applied to our transportation budget," he said.

"Republicans call it bonding. It's debt. Let's call it debt," said Sen. Joseph Wineke, D-Verona. "It's irresponsible, it's wrong-headed, it puts us in a pothole from hell."

"I don't see any reason we should not bond to provide major investments in our transportation infrastructure," replied Sen. Timothy Weeden, R-Beloit. Weeden said the state has long borrowed money to finance large highway projects, and there was nothing new in the latest budget.

Only four Democrats joined all 17 Republicans in the Senate to pass the bill.

The governor initially proposed a franchise fee that would have been expected to raise the gasoline tax at the pump as much as 51/2 cents. That would have made Wisconsin's gas tax the second highest in the nation.

Lawmakers cut that down to 3-1/2 cents, then deleted it entirely. Later, Thompson proposed a 3-1/2-cent increase, and the budget-writing Joint Finance Committee pared that down to a 2.9 cents-a-gallon hike. But a cadre of Democrats and Republicans in the Assembly who oppose new taxes in general rejected that too.

The state Department of Transportation has said that without new money for road construction, many projects across the state will be delayed.

State transportation budget at a glance

Associated Press

Highlights of the 1995-97 state transportation budget passed 21-11 by the Senate Thursday:

• No retail or wholesale increase on the gasoline tax, except for ordinary "indexing," as Gov. Tommy Thompson and the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee had recommended.
• A requirement that the state complete conversion of Highway 29 into a four-lane highway between Chippewa Falls and De Pere by Dec. 31, 2000.
• An increase of $40 million a year in borrowing for highway projects, to offset a cut in federal highway money from what the state had expected earlier.
• A $3 million per year tax exemption on railroad cars effective in the 1997 tax year, a year later than the Senate had recommended, saving the state transportation fund $3 million.
• Increases in mass transit aids of about $4.2 million, from $72 million in 1995 to $74 million in 1996 to $76.2 million in 1997.
• A ban on the use of photo radar detectors by state or local police. The devices would allow police to photograph speeding cars and mail tickets to their owners.
• A requirement that the Department of Transportation sell $2.5 million of surplus land sales (sic) over the next two years.

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