Contact: Kerry Thomas 262-246-6151
Leaders in Milwaukee County, Racine, and Kenosha join together today in a letter urging legislators to restore critical state transit funding, which is slated for drastic cuts in the State budget.
“We encourage you to restore transit aids and protect our ability to remain competitive as we seek to create and retain jobs, help train and educate our workers, and connect workers to employers in Southeast Wisconsin,” the letter urges.
Seventeen top elected, business, and educational leaders from the three counties signed the letter that will be delivered to state legislators today. They include mayors from Cudahy, Kenosha, Milwaukee, Oak Creek, Racine, St. Francis and South Milwaukee; Milwaukee County’s executive; business groups from Kenosha, Milwaukee, Racine and the southern Milwaukee County suburbs; and the University of Wisconsin chancellors of Milwaukee and Parkside.
Their joint letter points out that: “The state budget proposal to drastically reduce state funding for already severely strained transit systems in SE Wisconsin would threaten economic growth by making it harder or impossible for workers to get to jobs and discourage employers from locating or expanding in Wisconsin.”
On average, nearly half of transit trips are for work purposes, and many more are future workers who are using transit to get to schools, colleges and universities.
The proposed reduction in transit aids would cut nearly $8 million for transit systems in SE Wisconsin. “At the same time,” the letter states, “most of SE Wisconsin transit services are provided by private companies, whose workers are not subject to the Budget Repair Bill, which leaves no viable option for absorbing the funding cuts other than service cuts.” The state budget proposes to eliminate other alternative funding sources.
The leaders propose to use a portion of the recently identified new revenue in the Transportation Fund to restore the approximately $14 million in state transit aids for systems across the state, without impacting the budget negatively.
