Committee hears design-build, single-bid bills as part of WisDOT reform effort

Listen to this article

Lawmakers have aired out a handful of bills that could shake up how the Wisconsin Department of Transportation awards bids and delivers projects, as part of a multi-pronged effort to reform the department following a funding increase.

The Assembly Committee on Transportation met on Tuesday for a public hearing on six bills that are part of the GOP Road to Sustainability package. The package of bills, which includes 15 measures, largely didn’t make it into a transportation plan that the state’s Joint Finance Committee took up last week.

GOP lawmakers say the bill package aims to inject accountability into WisDOT to go along with an influx of road funding that the budget-writing committee passed last week.

Bills that the transportation committee considered would set new limits on single-bid contracts, prohibit local governments from passing so-called wheel taxes and require WisDOT to maintain an inventory of projects that could use the design-build delivery method, instead of the design-bid-build system used exclusively in Wisconsin. Other proposals considered would allow contractors to use alternative materials on road projects and allow builders to source materials from near a road project.

The committee, however, didn’t consider other parts of the package, such as a bill that would appoint a WisDOT watchdog beholden to the Legislature.

The package of bills would change department policies after the state’s budget-writing committee voted on two-year funding for the department last week.

Behind the bill package is Rep. Joe Sanfelippo, R-New Berlin; and Sens. Dave Craig, R-Big Bend; Tom Tiffany, R-Minocqua; Steve Nass, R-Whitewater; and Chris Kapenga, R-Delafield, who are basing a number of the proposals on a 2016 audit that identified problems within the agency.

“Quite frankly, it did not paint a very great picture of an efficiently run agency,” Sanfelippo said. “In fact, I think it’s fair to say that the audit was pretty scathing. They had done things a certain way because that’s the way they had always done it.”

On Thursday, the Joint Finance Committee approved a transportation plan that would increase vehicle title fees to raise $483.7 million over two years, and add $326 million in bonding. A feature of the plan adopted one agency reform measure included in the Road to Sustainability package: a measure that would establish a pilot program allowing design-build. The proposal would require WisDOT to use design-build contractors on six projects of various sizes through 2025, spending no more than $250 million.

Another bill the committee considered would require the agency to maintain an inventory of design-build projects.

Jim Hoffman, of Black River Falls-based Hoffman Construction, said the design-build proposals are a “very good step” to make Wisconsin consistent with rules Minnesota already has in-place. His company works in both states, and he favors Wisconsin allowing design-build contracts. The state is one of the few in the county that doesn’t allow design-build.

“Let the contractors figure it out,” Hoffman said. “We’ll let you know what’s cheapest.”

A design-build proposal died in the Legislature in 2017 after drawing opposition from some corners of the construction industry. Critics say the delivery method would favor large contractors with in-house design departments.

Another bill before the committee on Tuesday would place new rules on single-bid contracts. The measure, Assembly Bill 285, would require WisDOT to re-bid a single-bid contract that comes in over 10 percent of estimates. If a single-bid comes in too high, the agency can ask for permission from the Joint Finance Committee to award the job anyway if re-bidding it would affect public safety, for instance.

Sanfelippo noted that in WisDOT’s May 14 letting, 22 of the 51 jobs up for grabs drew just a single bidder. The agency deferred one bid, withdrew another and did not receive any bids on one contract.

‘So that’s not good,” he said.

However, Rep. John Spiros, R-Marshfield, said he was concerned that the bill could impose a challenging requirement on the department in economic boom times, when contractors are busy and unable to compete vigorously for road projects.

The economy tanks, you got all these bids,” Sprios said. “The economy’s good, are we always going to have more than one bid? That’s the concern that I have.”

Local governments also lined up against another proposal the committee heard Tuesday: a measure that would require wheel taxes to be passed by local referendum instead of by city and county governments. Assembly Bill 283 has drawn opposition from the Wisconsin League of Municipalities and the cities of Madison and Milwaukee and support from the conservative Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce.

Jim Bohl, a lobbyist for the city of Milwaukee, who previously served as city alderman, said in 2007 a city auditor found that Milwaukee had enough funding to replace its local roads once every 163 years. The city voted to pass a wheel tax in 2008.

“Even as a representative who didn’t like the fees, this was something that was absolutely necessary,” he said. Follow @natebeck9