Milwaukee County voters will have a say on $60 wheel tax Tuesday

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Arguments over how much Milwaukee County should be spending to repair roads and bridges will be taken to the ballot box next week.

As county residents cast ballots Tuesday on school referendums and in the race for Wisconsin superintendent of public instruction, they will also have to decide whether to support a proposed $60-a -year “wheel tax” meant to help pay for road and bridge work and transit-system operating expenses.

Its name notwithstanding, a wheel tax is actually a local vehicle-registration fee that governments can collect on top of the annual $75-a-year fees the state already gets from drivers. According to state law, any money raised using wheel taxes must be put to transportation-related expenses. County Executive Chris Abele first proposed a $60-a-year wheel tax last fall to help boost the county’s transportation budget.

Officials on the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors went on to cut Abele’s original proposal in half, approving a $30 wheel tax as part of the county’s 2017 budget. If Abele still wanted a $60 annual tax, board members decided, he should first at least see what voters have to say.

But even if the proposal is shot down on Tuesday, county residents aren’t likely to have heard the last of it. Speaking at a recent Public Policy Forum event, Abele said he would continue pushing for the $60 registration fee. Melissa Baldauff, a spokeswomen for Abele, said the county executive has repeatedly said he does not particularly like wheel taxes, but he is even less fond of the idea of seeing transit services cut or needed infrastructure projects delayed.

“The challenges we’re facing in our budget, they’re not going away,” Baldauff said on Friday. She added that the county will have a $50 million hole to fill in 2018.

If Abele keeps pushing for a higher wheel tax, he is likely to see continuing opposition from the county board. Some board members warn that the tax will fall most heavily on the poor.

“Instead of increasing taxes on those least able to afford it, I urge Mr. Abele to do the work needed to secure our fair share of dedicated transit funding from the state,” Supervisor Moore Omokundesaid in a written statement.

Baldauff said that Abele has worked with various groups to find a way to make the county’s wheel tax more “progressive,” meaning that it would increase in accordance with a person’s income. One possibility would be to vary the amounts collected based on a vehicle’s age, weight or value. Follow @alexzank