Transportation officials looking past State of the State to first Evers’ budget (UPDATE)

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Even with a divided state government, road-building advocates say they are confident that state officials will find a way to agree on a plan to spend more on the state’s much-maligned infrastructure.

But even with a newly elected Democratic governor in office, another hotly debated policy probably won’t be reinstated: prevailing wages.

Gov. Tony Evers will deliver his first State of the State address on Tuesday and, a number of weeks after that, his first biennial budget — one advocates hope will include a detailed plan calling for more spending on Wisconsin roads. Evers was expected to use his speech on Tuesday to promote “better roads and infrastructure, “according to excerpts released beforehand.

Terry McGowan, president of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 139, said he planned to watch the governor’s speech from the gallery of the state Assembly chamber, “hanging on every word” related to transportation.

Although Evers hasn’t released a detailed plan about how he’d pay for an improved transportation system, McGowan said he’s confident that Evers and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, a Republican, will reach a consensus that doesn’t rely heavily on borrowing. McGowan said that recent biennial budgets under Evers’ predecessor, Scott Walker, had allowed local roads to deteriorate — a fact McGowan believes contributed to Walker’s narrow loss in November.

“Your state highway budget cannot consist of just federal money,” McGowan said. “There are a lot of municipalities that have terrible roads in the outstate. It’s not an overnight fix. At least our new governor has that vision.”

McGowan and others are now mainly waiting to see what plans Evers will put into his biennial budget proposal.

“I’m going to let the governor blaze the trail,” he said. “I’m going to run wingman for him.”

But whatever the governor might propose, nothing can become law unless it is also agreed to by the Republican-controlled Legislature. For that reason, McGowan acknowledged, the prevailing-wage requirements that were eliminated under Walker aren’t likely to be resurrected.

At least one group is now re-emerging to advocate for more transportation spending. Former Wisconsin Assembly Speaker John Gard is registered as a lobbyist for Wisconsin Infrastructure Investment Now, a group McGowan had previously led as president. According to state records, the group lists prevailing wage as a topic of interest.

But Gard, like McGowan, said prevailing wages will probably not resurface in the near future. He said he intends generally to push for more infrastructure spending, but that without having seen a budget, he can’t really tell which policies are likely to attract the Legislature’s attention.

Gard is also registered as a lobbyist for an organization called Wisconsin Construction Group, which advocates for school construction and school referendums. The group emerged last fall as voters throughout the state were to consider more than $2 billion worth of school referendums. Such school-spending measures passed at record rates in November, drawing criticism from prominent Republican lawmakers who worried too much was being spent.

Gard said lawmakers of both parties know the state’s current system of paying for transportation projects isn’t working.

“One thing is clear in our opinion: You can’t keep borrowing money,” Gard said.

Kevin Traas, director of transportation policy and finance at the Wisconsin Transportation Builders Association, said any state budget that increases spending on infrastructure should put a large part of the additional money to large highway projects, such as rebuilding Interstate 43 north of Milwaukee. Evers, meanwhile, has also said he would assemble a task force to draw up a transportation-financing plan — another development Traas said he’d be watching.

“Our main job is funding the highway program,” Traas said. “We think there should be more major projects in the queue. Obviously something needs to be done in southeast Wisconsin.” Follow @natebeck9