WFBF, in conjunction with several other organizations, signed on to the letter below asking for support of increased funding for town roads.
Rural Town Road Dependent Industries Support Increased Funding for Town Roads
Without additional funding 92 key towns receive no transportation support in this budget
Sound infrastructure is crucial to foster economic growth. And for rural Wisconsin that infrastructure is town roads.
We strongly support a provision that is authored by Senators Tom Tiffany (R-Minocqua) and Jerry Petrowski (R-Marathon) that provides a one-time appropriation of $5 million ($2.5 million per year) to fund towns that are unintentionally negatively impacted by a flaw in the General Transportation Aids (GTA) formula.
The budget substitute amendment adopted by the Joint Committee on Finance would invest approximately $29.4 million in town roads (61,600 miles at $239/mile). Unfortunately, in the 2019-21 biennium, towns will lose an estimated $5.2 million due to a flaw in the funding distribution process. This is equal to 18% of the proposed investment. Because of this flaw, 92 towns will receive none of the additional funding and an additional 75 towns will only receive a portion of the new funding.
Although not a permanent fix, this one-time $5 million appropriation will ensure that the backbone of our rural economy gets the resources they need to keep our economy moving, until a permanent fix can be made to the funding formula.
Please vote in favor of this one-time budget fix when the budget is before the State Assembly on Tuesday to support Wisconsin’s vibrant rural economy.
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