DOT Secretary Craig Thompson recently announced the administration will create a committee that includes agency staff and representatives of local government to evaluate applications for the use of $75 million in GPR for transportation projects.
Thompson said possible uses of the money could include transit and indicated the city of Milwaukee could submit an application for funding its streetcar.
The state budget Republican lawmakers approved included $90 million in GPR in supplemental funding for local road projects. It also included a provision that directed $35.1 million to towns, $32 million to counties, and about $22.8 million to villages and cities.
Evers reduced that pot of money to $75 million, and he nixed the Legislature’s directive on how to split it up.
When news of Thompson’s comments broke, both Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, called for overriding Evers’ veto.
After the blowback on Thompson’s comments, the guv said he recently spoke Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who pledged that the city would not put grant money toward the streetcar.
“I guess that’s kind of a dead issue,” Evers said.
But a Vos spokeswoman fired back that the issue “isn’t dead.”
“The Republican Legislature allocated these dollars to fix local roads,” spokeswoman Kit Beyer said in an email. “Thanks to a Governor Evers’ veto, the DOT now has $75 million slush fund.”
Should the Legislature override Evers’ veto?
