Tag Archives: state budget

Roads jobs — more important than most, state says

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The state is going to slash and burn jobs over the next two years, under legislation to be considered next week. State government would be cut by $125 million over the next two years, but highway workers would be exempted from threats to their jobs, as would those with public safety gigs, such as cops or firefighters.

Oh, yeah. The first $300 million in federal stimulus money would go to highway projects.

So still no way to connect jobs to workers without cars, but plenty of cops to roust and bust them if they become homeless.

Or are they all supposed to find jobs as road builders?

The stimulus and the supplanting issue

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Some sort of stimulus package is going to pass sooner or later.

Then keep an eye on state and local governments, because they could negate a good piece of potential positive impact by a little cost-shifting from now to the future.

Take, for example, infrastructure projects. If the feds pump an additional $100 million into repairing roads and bridges in Wisconsin and the governor or the Legislature take that as an opportunity to cut $100 million in state funding for road and bridge repair, what’s stimulated? If it is a dollar for dollar trade, we are exactly where we were before in terms of jobs and better roads and bridges.

The state may, of course, be able to use $100 million in saved state money elsewhere, but there is no guarantee that the new expenditures will create jobs and it is more likely the money would just be thrown into one of the gaping budget holes that already exist, producing exactly zero new jobs, but perhaps preserving some existing ones.

It also is possible that using federal money to supplant state funding would lower the state tax burden, at least a little bit. It also increases the future federal tax burden because that debt has to be repaid, and with interest! Our kids and grandkids could end up bowed by a tax burden for a stimulus package that never was allowed to stimulate.

Ruined roads won’t get better

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A city audit says the city is not spending enough to fix its roads.

That is not exactly news.

People are quick to blame the absent man, former Mayor John Norquist, for cutting road maitnenance spending, although none of those people are quick to name the budget areas Norquist should have cut — libraries? police? firefighters? restaurant inspections? — to fund the repairs and none have themselves proposed sacrificing those services on the altar of road repair.

Milwaukee, in case anyone has not noticed, is a financially distressed city caught up in the horrible situation of increasing poverty, hard economic times and stagnant revenues. Can we be realistic here? There simply is not enough money at the local level to keep up with street repairs.

There is, however, money for local road repair at the state level. Unfortunately, this particular budget has been under-funded for years while the Wisconsin Department of Transportation has been busy chasing unneeded highway projects and road-builder campaign contributions. WisDOT, in its 2009-11 budget request, again is shorting Milwaukee and other local governments on local road repair funding while pumping millions and millions of dollars into unneeded freeway expansion and a study that may well result in Milwaukee losing tens of millions of dollars in property tax base.

So do the sensible thing. Increase local road aids and decrease wasteful highway spending that can only hurt the city.

And quit pointing at governmental ghosts.

Oil assessment? WisDOT wants it

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The $393 million oil company assessment Gov. Doyle says he will propose for his 2009-11 budget should go to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, according to WisDOT’s budget request.

The money would help pay for major spending in the next two years including, according to the agency:

  •  $63 million in state funds to continue work on Interstate 94 from Milwaukee to the Illinois state line to meet the scheduled completion date of 2016 (a total of $571 million is proposed for the project is proposed in the budget request);
  • $181 million to begin work on the Zoo Interchange in Milwaukee County so that construction can begin by 2012 and meet a completion date of 2016;
  • $17.0 million to continue implementation of REAL ID;
  • $100 million in General Obligation bonding, with annual debt service payments funded from the Transportation Fund, for transit in SE Wisconsin;
  • expanding Hiawatha passenger train service; and
  • inflationary cost increases for all highway-related programs and local aid programs.

“In addition to these initiatives, rising fuel and utility costs have made it more expensive to maintain current levels of customer service department-wide. For example, higher fuel costs have contributed to a need for additional funding for highway maintenance and for the Division of State Patrol,” WisDOT said. “As demands for transportation funding have increased, revenue growth has not kept pace. ”

Sales of taxable motor fuel declined this year, according to WisDOT.

Source: Wisconsin Department of Transportation.

Doyle said last week that the state is facing a $5 billion deficit. The governor has not said whether he would propose that the oil company assessment go to WisDOT.

The proposed oil assessment would include a provision prohibiting oil companies from passing the cost along to customers, WisDOT said.