Walker Admin planned for more Scottholes, and Lame Duck bills may have made it worse

This article from the Daily Reporter reminded me of something I and many others had let slide – the updated WisDOT budget request.

The Daily Reporter article mentioned that one part of that request is that WisDOT wanted to be able to borrow for more types of projects around the state.

In its 2020-2021 biennial budget request, WisDOT proposes changing Wisconsin law to allow so-called Transportation Revenue Bonds to be used for its State Highway Rehabilitation program, which pays for highway and bridge improvements. State law now prevents these sorts of transportation bonds, which are backed by registration and other vehicle-related fees in the state’s transportation fund, from being used for anything other than the agency’s Major Highway Development program. That program deals with costly and complex projects such as the ongoing reconstruction of Interstate 39/90 between Madison and the Illinois state line….

WisDOT’s budget request calls for changing state law to expand the department’s borrowing powers to allow debt to be used for rehabilitation projects. The plan proposes using $26.4 million worth of transportation-revenue bonds in the 2020-2021 budget period to make up for a expected shortfall of transportation revenue and cutting the amount of bonding allowed for the major highway development program by $34.8 million.

It’s a relatively cosmetic change, if you think that “all DOT money is green” and that revenues shouldn’t be segregated much based on what the project is. But the expansion of what projects canbe borrowed for masks a bigger story that appears inside the updated budget request (which you can read by clicking here). And it also is in the Daily Reporter article.

The budget, meanwhile, proposes cutting $198 million from the state’s major highway program and adding $153.5 million to its highway rehabilitation program. Such a change would be in line with how Walker said he’d pay for infrastructure projects if he won re-election this year — by placing a priority on highway maintenance and repairs rather than large interstate projects and giving local governments more cash for roads.

Read that again – Walker’s DOT wanted to cut $198 million from projects such as Madison’s Beltline, I-39/90 south of Madison, Highway 15 in Outagamie County, Highway 23 between Sheboygan and Fond du Lac, and Highway 50 west of Kenosha. It also would come on top of a cut of $77 million in the current 2017-19 budget, which means we would fall even further behind over the 2019-21 biennium for these projects, as well as new needs that may come up.

More coming without changes

But it's even worse than that. The Legislative Fiscal Bureau just released their "Plainer English" summary of the budget requests, and it mentions that borrowing is also reduced in the 2019-21 DOT budget request.

Highway borrowing, FY 2019 vs 2019-21 budget request
2018-19 base $192.8 million
2019-20 request $62.7 million
2020-21 request $62.1 million

In addition, the budget request expects a cut from the deficit-wracked Federal government of $15 million over the next 2 years. Put it together, and the 2019-21 WisDOT budget requests cuts overall spending on highways each year by at least $150 million compared to what we're spending now. And what we're spending now is a decline of $173 million compared to what we spent in 2017-18 (which granted, is inflated due to a $160 million grant to pay for I-94 improvements near Foxconn). Major freeway projects are projected to have significant reductions throughout the state.

Let me remind you that these figures are before we inflation, which seems especially concerning with material costs increasing.

So did Wisconsin Republicans use this lame duck session to possibly send more money to highway projects and put the finances on a better footing going into the next budget? OF COURSE NOT. Instead they installed handcuffs on what Tony Evers’ DOT might spend money on. This provision in the Lame Duck Bills is an example.

Limitation on the Use of Federal Funds on State Highway Project Types. For those projects on which the Department expends federal moneys, require DOT to expend federal moneys on not less than 70% of the aggregate project components eligible for federal funding each fiscal year for the following project types: (a) southeast Wisconsin freeway megaprojects; (b) major highway development projects; and (c) state highway rehabilitation (SHR) projects with a total cost of less than $10 million. This provision would limit the use of federal funds for these project types to not less than 70% of the aggregate federally eligible project components.

Specify that if the Department determines that it cannot meet this requirement or if it could make more effective and efficient use of federal moneys, DOT would be able to submit a proposed alternate funding plan to the Joint Committee on Finance. Provide that if the Co-Chairs of the Committee do not notify the Department within 14 working days after the date of DOT's submittal that the Committee has scheduled a meeting for the purpose of reviewing the proposed plan, the Department would be able to expend moneys as proposed in the plan. Specify that if within 14 working days after the date of the submittal, the Co-Chairs of the Committee notify the Department that the Committee has scheduled a meeting for the purpose of reviewing the proposed plan, DOT would be able to expend moneys as proposed in the plan only upon approval of the Committee.

The LFB went on to add that such a restriction on where federal money could go might lower the amount of redistribution aid the state gets from the Feds (basically money left over from prior projects nationwide), because there are fewer projects that WisDOT can use that money on. And yes, this is the same redistribution money that Scott Walker once claimed would be a way to fill WisDOT’s budget holes.

This plan didn't quite work out.

In addition to the hands-tying when it comes to federal money, “small government” GOPs on the Joint Finance added on to the lame duck DOT bill Monday night that would have put further restrictions and requirements on local road construction projects, but it didn’t make the cut the next day.

The Joint Finance Committee amended the bill to add a prohibition on local governments from using their own workforce or contracting with another political subdivision for a local road or bridge project funded, in whole or in part, with state money. The provision also says local governments would have to bid out any local road or bridge project funded with state money.

But that piece of the bill was removed Tuesday as GOP Sen. Duey Stroebel, who authored the amendment, said the JFC change wasn’t meant to prohibit local governments from doing their own road work.

Oh NOOOO, WisGOP didn’t want to cut the need for local government employees and funnel more business to road construction contractors (and donors). NOOOOO, total coincidence!

That goes into the other reason this provision was jammed into the Lame Duck bills as opposed to the regular budget. Because it is an attempt to have more highway projects be funded entirely by state dollars, which allows contractors to avoid prevailing wages and other Federal work rules, making for another nice anti-worker provision to shove through before a Governor Evers could veto it.

The DOT budget request also reminds us that while the major highway projects are being cut, and new debt is projected to be cut, paying off all versions of previous DOT debt will cost the Transportation Fund $38 million more than the base amount going into 2019. And while there are reductions in the total borrowing, it's still over $133 million more that we'd put on the credit card, and that'll have to be paid back with interest at a later point as well.

So the the Walker Administration was planning to continue their spiral of more money for debt along with less money spent to fix the roads that have so many Scottholes in this state already. Fortunately, they won't be around to screw things up further, but it illustrates just what a mess that mentality has put us in, as the Evers Administration takes over in a month.