Without debate, Oneida County rubber stamps push for new transportation funding

Oneida County supervisors have endorsed without debate a statewide campaign calling for additional transportation funding from the state, approving a resolution Tuesday that urges lawmakers to adopt a “sustainable” funding model for Wisconsin’s roads and bridges.

The campaign and the resolution, developed by the Wisconsin Counties Association (WCA), ask the governor and state Legislature to enact a comprehensive funding solution that provides “adequate and reliable revenue growth” for state and local transportation programs and allows for the continued use of bonding and other revenue mechanisms. 

Translated, that means higher taxes and fees, and more debt.

County board members adopted the measure verbatim from the WCA’s suggested language as part of the board’s consent agenda at its March 17 meeting. It passed without mention along with several other routine items.

The resolution places Oneida County among a growing list of local governments supporting the WCA’s statewide campaign designed to pressure state officials to address what advocates describe as an unsustainable funding gap in Wisconsin’s transportation system.

Supporters say the effort is intended to ensure long-term stability for road funding. Critics say the campaign asks local governments to endorse the principle of higher transportation funding without specifying which taxes, fees, or borrowing mechanisms would actually be used.

A statewide campaign

Oneida County is not alone in hawking the resolution. The WCA rolled out its campaign in January, calling it the first step in a multi-faceted coalition campaign to urge lawmakers and future governors to find a solution that ensures “sustainable” transportation funding.

There are a few ways for government to make such funding sustainable, the WCA stated on its website: through income and sales taxes collected by the state; user fees that go toward a specific line-item appropriation; and segregated user fees that go into a specified larger appropriation.

“Transportation funding to locals is through the Segregated Transportation Fund,” the WCA explained. “The state collects user fees (gas tax, registration fees, etc.) and that revenue is segregated into its own account, which is then used to fund local transportation programs.”

The WCA emphasized that the model resolution does not endorse any specific solution, though it explicitly calls for a budget that “provides adequate and reliable revenue growth for the efficient long-term planning and execution of state and local transportation programs” and includes “responsible and prudent use of General Purpose Revenue and bonding.”

Already, other counties are hopping on the bandwagon, with other counties, including Pierce and Richland, passing similar resolutions. The WCA is asking counties to approve the resolutions by the end of April, when it will launch Phase 2 of the campaign, which includes legislative meetings and candidate forums.

According to the WCA, which is a special interest group representing the incorporated institutions of county government, the goal is to build momentum heading into the next state budget cycle.

“Our collective effort will show that counties throughout the state believe this issue needs to be addressed in the next budget,” the association said on its website.

The model resolution claims that local governments maintain approximately 90 percent of Wisconsin’s public road miles, including county highways, town roads, and municipal streets. It argues that local officials are struggling to maintain those systems as construction costs rise and state transportation aids fail to keep pace.

“Despite modest increases from the state over the years, transportation aids to local governments remain insufficient to keep pace with inflation and rising construction costs, leaving many communities funded below 2000 levels in real dollars,” the resolution states. “Local governments throughout Wisconsin continue to struggle to perform even routine maintenance, pavement preservation, and safety improvements, resulting in deteriorating roads and bridges.”

An inaugural inventory and assessment of small bridges between six and 20 feet found about 10 percent of the nearly 17,000 structures to be in poor or severe condition, the WCA stated, and the resolution also took aim at property tax limits imposed on local governments by the state.

“Levy limits and other fiscal constraints prevent local governments from independently filling the funding gap created by inadequate state transportation aids,” the resolution stated.

The WCA also argues that both Wisconsin’s aging Interstate highway system, which was built mostly in the 1950s and 1960s, and the state’s network of state and local roads require predictable, adequate, and sustainable funding to meet current and future needs.

Specifically, the resolution calls for a funding solution that provides “adequate and reliable revenue growth for the efficient long-term planning and execution of state and local transportation programs; includes responsible and prudent use of General Purpose Revenue and bonding; adjusts any new and existing transportation user fees and other revenue mechanisms to sustain purchasing power in order to maintain and improve Wisconsin’s transportation infrastructure; and ensures that transportation continues to deliver for Wisconsin by adequately funding reconstruction, preservation, and safety investments on the state and local systems.”

In addition, the measure also calls for maintaining or expanding funding for several existing transportation programs that provide aid to local governments, including the Local Roads Improvement Program (LRIP), the Agricultural Roads Improvement Program (ARIP), and general transportation aids.

Those programs help local governments repair roads, replace small bridges, and fund other transportation infrastructure projects.

The WCA resolution argues that, absent sustainable state funding, “many communities have been forced to address their shortfalls by significantly increasing borrowing, deferring essential projects, or imposing local vehicle registration (‘wheel’) taxes.”

The Wisconsin Counties Association has long supported allowing counties to raise transportation revenue through local vehicle registration fees and has opposed proposals that would require local governments to hold a referendum before adopting wheel taxes.

Finally, the resolution states, Wisconsin motorists currently pay among the lowest transportation user fees in the Midwest.

Where taxes linger longer

The WCA campaign centers on what it describes as a structural imbalance in the state’s transportation fund.

Wisconsin’s transportation system is primarily funded through segregated revenue from user fees, such as the state gasoline tax and vehicle registration fees. Those revenues are deposited into the state transportation fund and used to pay for road construction, maintenance, and transportation aids to local governments.

In recent years, segregated user fees from the state gasoline tax and vehicle registration fees have not kept pace with spending obligations. As a result, lawmakers have increasingly transferred money from the state’s general fund — primarily supported by income and sales taxes — to support transportation programs.

That has been possible only because the state has been running a surplus, the WCA states on its website.

“We’re extremely appreciative that lawmakers and the current administration have continued to prioritize transportation in a bipartisan fashion,” the group stated. “But these increases will not continue if a state surplus isn’t available.” 

Advocates for increased transportation funding say the situation reflects a broader national trend, as many states struggle to maintain road systems built decades ago while construction costs and traffic demands continue to rise.

While the WCA resolution avoids espousing any specific solution, the WCA itself has not been so shy. 

As reported above, the organization supports imposing municipal wheel taxes without voter approval. It has also called for relief from the state’s property-tax levy limits, arguing that the restrictions prevent counties from keeping up with rising costs. More than two dozen Wisconsin municipalities currently levy wheel taxes, and several counties have adopted them as well.

Indeed, the WCA’s 2025-26 legislative agenda was aggressive in its calls for higher taxes and user fees to fund increased spending.

In particular, the WCA called for increasing funding for general transportation aid payments to counties in an amount equal to 30 percent of the costs; for increasing mass transit operating aids to reflect the growing costs for counties; to make additional investments in the LRIP and routine maintenance agreements, as well as to increase funding for the Specialized Transportation Assistance program for counties.

It also endorsed creating a new funding program for local governments targeted at small bridge maintenance, repair, and replacement.

All that takes money, of course, and so to pay the freight, the WCA has proposed allowing annual levy increases based on the greater of net new construction or 3 percent. Under current Wisconsin law, local property-tax levy increases are generally limited to the percentage growth in a community’s tax base from net new construction. 

So, under the WCA proposal, counties could still increase the levy by 3 percent even if there was no net new construction.

It also wants the state to exempt economic development and public safety expenditures from levy limits, allowing uncapped property tax increases for those portions of the budget, which can be significant. In Oneida County, for instance, public safety is one of the county’s largest spending priorities. In the 2026 budget, about 23 percent of Oneida County’s total spending is dedicated to public safety functions, including sheriff’s patrols, the county jail, and emergency communications.

In addition, the WCA calls for allowing counties to engage in short-term general obligation borrowing for operational expenses and to impose a sales tax of up to 1.5 percent, up from the maximum of .5 percent now.

Just Fix It

The WCA’s new highway campaign is eerily similar to a campaign some years back called Just Fix It, launched by the Wisconsin Transportation Development Association (TDA), of which the WCA was and is a member.

The TDA launched the “Just Fix It” campaign during the 2015-16 debate over then Gov. Scott Walker’s transportation budget. Then, as now, the campaign’s core argument was that Wisconsin’s transportation funding system was failing and lawmakers needed to increase funding for roads and transit. 

As with today, the messaging deliberately focused on “fix the roads” rather than “raise taxes.”

During the debate, TDA organized local governments to pass resolutions urging the state to increase transportation funding. By September 2016, 50 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties had passed “Just Fix It” resolutions. More than 350 cities, towns, and villages had joined the campaign.  

Model resolutions reiterated that Wisconsin’s roads were deteriorating, that the transportation system needed “sustainable funding,” and that the Legislature should develop a long-term funding solution.

At the time, TDA groups cited national studies ranking Wisconsin among the worst states in road maintenance and conditions. Those groups included county governments; highway departments and airports; construction and engineering companies such as Ames Construction; labor unions; and regional planning groups, among others.

The Wisconsin Counties Association and local governments were major participants. Oneida County itself participated in the “Just Fix It” effort. In 2016, the county became the 50th county to adopt a resolution urging state leaders to increase transportation funding as part of that campaign. More than 350 cities, towns, and villages also signed on to the “Just Fix It” effort.

Just like today, the resolutions highlighted the need for additional funding without prescribing a specific solution, and local leaders emphasized that point.

“This resolution is saying how the state wants to do that is up to them,” then Oneida County board supervisor Robb Jensen said. “But do something. Don’t keep doing the same old, same old, because we’re going to continue to fall farther and farther behind.”

Jensen is also a current member of the county board.

The vagueness notwithstanding, the Transportation Development Association at the state level had also promoted several specific revenue options, including increasing the gas tax, raising vehicle registration fees, and exploring the possibility of tolling certain Wisconsin highways.

Many of those plans ran head-long into opposition from Walker and the state’s Republican legislature.

“The one area where I draw the line is, I made a firm pledge to the voters that I would not raise the gas tax and fees associated with transportation,” WJFW TV reported Walker as saying then. “I respect those who disagree with me, but that’s a pledge I made.”

Transportation funding has been a recurring issue in Wisconsin politics for decades. The state’s highway system expanded significantly during the mid-20th century, when interstate highways and many state and local roads were constructed.

As those roads age, maintenance and reconstruction costs have increased. Meanwhile, revenue from traditional transportation sources — particularly gasoline taxes — has grown more slowly.

As a result, the state has increasingly relied on bonding as a major component of transportation funding, particularly over the past two decades. In 2006, Wisconsin’s transportation debt was about $1.5 billion. Over the past five biennia, according to a Legislative Fiscal Bureau paper in 2025,  transportation fund-supported, general obligation bond authorizations averaged $231.6 million per biennium.

Annual debt service payments, including principal and interest, typically total between $350 million to $360 million and are paid directly from the transportation fund  —  the same fund used for highway construction, maintenance, and aid to local governments. Because of  fewer bonding authorizations and increasing registration and title fees, the amount has been declining.

In the early 2000s, debt service accounted for roughly 8 to 10 percent of transportation fund spending. In recent years it has hovered in the neighborhood of 16 percent.

The broader context is Wisconsin’s massive public road network, which spans roughly 115,866 miles. The state directly maintains about 11,700 miles of that system, while the remainder is maintained by counties, cities, towns, and villages.

Richard Moore is the author of “Dark State” and may be reached at richardd3d.substack.com.