Transportation bills seek to balance higher revenue with reforms

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Wisconsin Republicans say a proposed gas tax is dead-on-arrival  and have introduced a set of transportation bills calling for a funding alternative and a number of department overhauls meant to cajole skeptical lawmakers into assenting to a revenue increase.

The proposals are intended both to supplement a transportation plan that Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, laid out earlier this year as part of his two-year budget proposal and to use policy reforms at the Wisconsin Department of Transportation to appease Republican lawmakers wary of a revenue increase. Evers has called for increasing WisDOT spending by $608 million over the next biennium, largely by increasing the state’s gas tax by as much as 10 cents a gallon by the end of the budgetary period.

Rather than increase the state’s gas tax, the latest proposals would take some of the taxes now collected on sales of vehicles and auto parts and set the money aside for the transportation fund. Republicans say other proposals are meant to make the agency more accountable. The proposals, for instance, would let WisDOT test out the design-build delivery method on highway projects, set up a agency watchdog that would answer to the Legislature and put in place new rules for when the state receives single bids for big contracts.

“I believe for some members to support a revenue increase, reforms will need to go through,” said Sen. Tom Tiffany, R-Minocqua, an author of many of the proposed bills. “I think it will be very hard to get their support without reforms.”

Tiffany said the legislation will most likely be introduced in coming weeks.

The bills include 15 separate proposals. Some of them would require WisDOT to act on the findings of a recent audit that identified various departmental deficiencies. Others would change how WisDOT awards and plans road projects. Still others would change transportation policy on a local level. One proposal, for instance, would give local governments the ability to veto WisDOT plans to build roundabouts. Another would allow so-called wheel tax increases to be approved only in referendums.

The revived design-build proposal would let WisDOT try out the delivery method on six road projects. Wisconsin is one of just a few states that almost exclusively use the design-bid-build system of delivery. Along similar lines, another proposal would require WisDOT to keep a number of design-build projects “on the shelf,” to be pulled down when the department expects to receive federal money for shovel-ready projects.

A similar design-build proposal drew broad opposition from the construction industry in 2017 amid worries that the system would favor companies that are large enough to have in-house design teams. The latest version is troubling for similar reasons, said John Schulze, director of legal and government relations at the Associated Builders and Contractors of Wisconsin, a trade group that represents mostly non-union companies.

Meanwhile, other proposals are meant to bring down the cost of road-building materials. One would exempt gravel pits from local zoning ordinances when these sorts of pits are being operated by contractors and are being used to supply specific road projects. Tiffany explained that one of the biggest influences on road-construction costs is materials prices.

Still another test program, the Bridge Bundling Pilot Project,  would have WisDOT, by the end of 2019, seek out a contractor that would agree to try build as many bridges as it could for $150 million.

The main sponsor of the proposals seeking to use taxes on cars and auto parts to pay for transportation, state Rep. Joe Sanfelippo, R-New Berlin, has previously said he wants to provide the department with new revenue without hitting drivers at the pump. Sanfelippo has said his plan would raise about $258 million over the next biennium and about $440 million for roads in the budget after that. He did not respond to a request for comment by press time on Thursday.

But some Republican lawmakers aren’t willing to go along with a revenue increase. In exchange for more money, some GOP lawmakers want to see policies meant to make WisDOT more accountable, said Mike Mikalsen, a spokesman for Sen. Steve Nass, R-La Grange, a sponsor of many of the proposals.

To that end, one of the proposed bills would require the department to re-bid projects that attract a single bid that’s more than 10% higher than WisDOT’s estimates. The proposal comes after a Interstate 39/90 project drew a single bid that was about $20 million higher than the department’s estimates. 

Other bills are also meant to provide incentives for keeping costs low. One, for instance, would provide bonuses to WisDOT employees who find ways to operate the department more efficiently. Road builders whose material costs come in below estimates could also be awarded 50% of the cost savings Follow @natebeck9