Tony Evers' transportation secretary signals he wants to raise the gas tax or vehicle fees

MADISON - Gov. Tony Evers' pick to lead the Department of Transportation signaled Thursday he would recommend raising the gas tax or vehicle fees to help pay for roads as he convened a task force.

Transportation Secretary Craig Thompson said he believed more money was needed for transportation and the best way to get it would be to increase gas taxes or vehicle fees. He noted a 2014 amendment to the state Constitution guarantees those funds will be used for transportation.

"The user fees that we pay when we pay our registration fee and gas taxes go into a constitutionally protected fund," he told reporters before the task force met. "Those two user fees are naturals for us to look at.”

Other options, including tolling, will also be considered by the task force. But Thompson noted tolling would take years to implement and initially could be used only in limited ways because federal law limits tolling on interstate highways in many states.

Thompson said he would use input from the 34-member task force to make recommendations to the Democratic governor in time for him to incorporate them into a budget he will introduce by Feb. 28. The Republican-controlled Legislature must sign off on the budget and any tax or fee increases.

How to fund transportation in Wisconsin has been repeatedly studied for more than a decade. Those reviews — conducted by former Gov. Scott Walker's administration and, before that, a committee run by Republican lawmakers — have consistently concluded the state needs an influx of cash to pay for its highways.

Thompson said the new task force would build its work off the earlier studies.

"There is a problem. It’s been documented. It’s not opinion; it’s been documented by metrics across the board," Thompson said. "I do believe that the current revenue we have we will not be able to significantly improve conditions and increase access to transit and some of the other things we need to do. So I do believe we are going to need more revenue."

Evers spoke briefly to the task force, which includes lawmakers from both parties and representatives of local governments, economic development organizations, planning commissions, tourism entities and business groups.

"This is not a Republican issue or a Democratic issue," Evers said. "It’s a state of Wisconsin issue and I know there’s a nonpartisan way to solve this problem."

Evers did not take questions from reporters afterward, but he said on the campaign trail he was open to raising gas taxes or vehicle fees.

The state's gas tax is 32.9 cents per gallon. The annual fee for automobiles is $75, though some local governments tack on additional fees.

The task force held a daylong meeting Thursday in Madison and will meet Monday in La Crosse.

Thompson said even with a tax or fee increase, it will take time before people see improvements to the state's roads.

"The one thing we do know, no matter what, A, we propose and, B, is ultimately passed and signed into law, there’s not going to be enough revenue to fix our problem in the next two years or even the next four years," Thompson said. "What we want to do is get us on a path to begin doing that."