Rural Wisconsin is getting the bigger state aid boosts in this budget, no matter what GOPs tell you.

I wanted to revisit a post I made a couple of weeks back that discussed a veto Governor Evers made on road funding that made many rural Republicans cry crocodile tears. T The Legislative Fiscal Bureau recently released a rundown on that veto, and included important context to go along with it which shows that the rurals are getting a great deal as a result of the 2023-25 budget and legislative session.

First, let's talk about Evers' veto.

As passed by the Legislature, Senate Bill 70 [the 2023-25 State Budget] would have also increased the GTA program's mileage aid rate payment for municipalities by 2.0% annually, from its current level of $2,734 per mile, to $2,789 per mile for calendar year 2024, and to $2,845 per mile for 2025, and thereafter. The Governor's partial veto deletes these provisions. Consequently, the current law statutory mileage aid rate payment of $2,734 per mile for calendar year 2023, and thereafter, is retained. The veto primarily affects towns, as most cities and villages are on the share of cost component of the GTA formula and most towns are on the mileage aid component of the formula. As a result, most towns will not receive additional aid from the 2% annual increase in general transportation aid. Instead, as shown in the last row of the Attachment, because of the Governor's partial veto, an estimated $3.2 million in 2023-24 and $6.4 million in 2024-25, in additional funding would be available to be allocated to those municipalities on the share-of-cost side of the GTA formula.

So these towns don't get additional funding from the state via GTAs for the next 2 years. But those reallocations total less than 1% of all the money that will go out under GTAs for 2024, and just over 1.5% for 2025.

Governor Evers also reminded us that this change in the GTA formula isn’t nearly as one-sided as the cuts in GTAs that were signed into law in Scott Walker’s first budget. And that pro-rural change has stayed in place in the state's funding formula (and compounded) for the last 12 years.

As stated in the Governor's veto message, the 2011-13 budget reduced funding for general transportation aid by 10%, while the mileage aid rate was reduced by only 3%, which had the opposite effect of the Governor Evers current veto. That provision reduced overall funding for general transportation aid by 10% for nearly all (except very small) cities and villages while reducing funding for towns and small cities and villages on mileage aid by 3%, and continues to affect the distribution of GTA funding each year. The rationale for the 2011-13 provision was that smaller municipalities, by having a limited number, if any, full-time employees, with full employee benefits, could not partake in the employee cost reductions mandated under 2011 Act 10.

And by the way, the total of $9.6 million in reallocations in GTAs is a fraction of the added funds that are targeted to towns and other rural areas in this budget. Starting with another state aid program to help pay for road projects - the Local Roads Improvement Program (LRIP), and also including a huge boost to transportation access to farmland.

While the Governor's veto would mean that municipalities on mileage aid will continue to receive the same amount of general transportation aid over the next two years that they received in 2023, other budget provisions provided increased aid to local governments. For example, towns and counties will be the primary recipients of the newly-created agricultural roads improvement program, which is provided $150 million in one-time funding in the 2023-25 biennium under Act 19. The program will make grants of up to 90% of eligible costs to reimburse political subdivisions for agricultural road projects. Act 19 also provides one-time funding of $100,000,000 in 2023-24 for the local roads improvement program supplementary grants (LRIP-S) component, which funds county trunk highway improvements, town road improvements, and municipal street improvements. The LRIP-S program funding is distributed in the same percentages as the LRIP discretionary grants component (35.6% for counties, 39.0% for towns, and 25.4% for municipalities in the 2023-25 biennium). The LRIP program formula component and discretionary component also received a 4% annual increase in the biennium under Act 19. Table 1 indicates the total and percent increase in biennial LRIP funding in 2023-25 compared to base funding for each local government type. As shown in the table, towns will receive the largest percentage increase in total LRIP funding in biennium.

Outside of direct funding for roads, the LFB adds that towns are seeing their amounts of shared revenues go up more than 156% under the newly-signed law, allowing for more resources that can go to a variety of needs, including roads. Towns will get nearly 1/3 of the increase among Wisconsin’s cities, villages and town, despite the fact that less than 27% of Wisconsinites live in those communities.

In addition, Wisconsin counties are getting a 55% total increase in shared revenues, but Milwaukee County was given only a 16% increase as part of the shared revenue bill. This translates into many rural counties getting a lot more than a 55% increase (click here to see how your neighborhood fares under this).

Bottom line – rural Wisconsin is getting more than its share of state funds sent its way in the state budget, despite accounting for less of the state's economic activity. I don't even mind some of those funds being redirected - everyone deserves first-class infrastructure and services no matter where they live - but things are heavily slanted in favor of communities that have few taxpayers and jobs residing in them, and it lessens the need for them to have wheel taxes, sales taxes and other measures to make up the difference. I'd say that's a very good deal for those rural residents.

Governor Evers' veto’s attempt to rebalance a fraction of those extra millions is only fair (and nowhere near as much as what would be truly fair). And the best part is that the added aids of all sorts in this budget should limit the strains on property taxes and other services, allowing for all of communities to have a better chance to improve for the rest of the 2020s.