Wisconsin Transportation Budget Still Stalled Over Borrowing

State lawmakers are still divided over how much money Wisconsin should borrow to pay for road projects across the state.

Republicans in the Senate proposed $712 million in borrowing for roads earlier this week.

After a Wednesday meeting with Gov. Scott Walker and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said that number is still too high for Assembly Republicans.

“We had problems with bonding at $500 million, which is where Gov. Walker was, so obviously a number significantly north of $500 (million) doesn’t make sense,” Vos said.

Vos said the Assembly position remains largely unchanged since the spring — its GOP members continue to oppose borrowing without a new source of revenue, like a gas tax increase, to pay off the debt.

“If we’re going to borrow more money on our credit card, you have to have a way to pay it off,” Vos said. “So that’s where the Assembly has been, I don’t think a lot of those things have changed.”

Walker and Senate Republicans are opposed to a gas tax increase.

Vos said the leaders “didn’t go into any great depth about specifics” during the meeting Wednesday, which lasted more than an hour.

“We’re just just trying to get to the point of negotiating and putting points out there,” he said. “Hopefully over the course of the next week we’ll continue to digest what the Senate said (on Tuesday), and they’ll listen to some of our ideas and see if we can come together.”

The state budget is almost three weeks past its June 30 deadline. The previous budget will continue until a new one is approved. If that takes months, some major road projects may be delayed.