Proposal gives green light to sales tax referendum

Dennis A. Shook, Special to The Daily Reporter
January 17, 2008

A bill to help raise money for bus and train service should arrive in the state Legislature in the next two weeks, but some key regional stakeholders and transit advocates are not exactly on board.

That’s the view of several legislators and even members of the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Transit Authority, the state’s only RTA, which includes members from county and city governments in Kenosha, Racine and Milwaukee.

SEWRTA sent a letter to legislators indicating its opposition to the bill, which would let RTAs be created throughout the state and give them the ability to use a referendum to seek support for a sales tax. SEWRTA, which doesn’t have that authority, is about to send another letter detailing its concerns to a group of state legislators preparing the proposal, said George Torres, the director of transportation and public works for Milwaukee County and the county’s SEWRTA delegate.

“There are just too many unanswered questions” about the proposal, he said.

Yet the state Assembly is close to considering the RTA bill, said state Rep. Jeff Stone, R-Greenfield.

Torres said the bill appears to let some communities opt out of a regional plan before and after an RTA is formed, leaving other members to assume additional transit costs without warning. So Torres indicated it’s likely that SEWRTA will ask to be exempted from the bill, which was originally developed by the Wisconsin Alliance of Cities.

The Alliance of Cities pushed for the legislation because it will let places like Dane County and the cities of Appleton and Green Bay create RTAs to manage and pay for transit services that either don’t yet exist, like rail, or are financially challenged, such as bus lines. The bill also would let those RTAs place transportation services across municipal and county borders under one administration.

“There are cities and counties throughout the state that will benefit from this bill and will need this (sales tax referendum) method to preserve their transit lines or start new services,” said Ed Huck, executive director of the Alliance of Cities. “That is why we have been working on this issue for many months.”

That tax would help pay for mass-transit options, either rubber tire or rail, and is the most controversial aspect of the bill.

“There is a sense of opposition statewide to an additional sales tax,” Torres said. “It creates tax islands.”

Karl Ostby, SEWRTA chairman, also opposes the one-size-fits-all RTA plan, saying it would probably mean SEWRTA would have to be reconstituted.

“The concept of RTAs is something we support, but we’d like the legislation to be more specific to the needs of southeastern Wisconsin or exempt us,” Ostby said. “The Republican (state Assembly) caucus seems more focused on not seeing it happen and so is making it too complicated.

“For example, what does Racine County do if Caledonia doesn’t approve a (sales tax referendum)? Do you not let them ride the train?”

The train Ostby referred to is the proposed Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee commuter rail line. An effort to have rental-car fees raised from $2 to $15 to help pay for the system failed to be included in the state’s biennial budget bill.

But a bid to seek a sales tax increase to fund KRM failed to win support from the SEWRTA board. Torres and Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker opposed the sales tax.

Ostby said he remains optimistic that SEWRTA can find its transit money.

Stone agrees that SEWRTA is still the best place for finding transit money and said he will likely oppose the RTA plan by his colleagues unless it exempts southeastern Wisconsin.

“We don’t need another RTA” in southeastern Wisconsin, Stone said. And as for finding another money source, he added, “We could accomplish our goals by being more effective and efficient, without spending more money.”

But the clock is running out for SEWRTA to find a money source.

“A (SEWRTA funding) report is due by November of this year,” and most of the members must agree, said Phil Evenson, executive director of the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, which serves as staff to SEWRTA. Without such an agreement or an extension by the state Legislature that created it, SEWRTA would cease to exist in November 2009.

“There are nearly 2 million people in the southeastern Wisconsin region, so we should have a regional system,” Evenson said. “And most metropolitan areas of similar size have a sales tax to support that.”