La Crosse city council member says wheel tax push direct result of lax state road funding

There are a lot of roads to fix and not enough money to do it.

Sound familiar? It’s pretty constant refrain from cities and counties all over Wisconsin, which is why there’s more interest in putting in place wheel taxes for vehicles, says La Crosse city council member Gary Padesky.

He says state funding shortfalls are behind the wheel tax movement.

“Whatever the state is doing for the county or the city, obviously it’s not enough,” Padesky said Thursday morning on WIZM.

Padesky suggests the idea may have some merit and contends additional road repair funding can’t be done at the expense of other city facilities like parks.

“There are so many things here in this area that makes it what it is,” he said. “You can’t focus everything on roads and not put money in some of the other areas.”

Padesky added that some sort of additional funding will have to be identified in order for the city of La Crosse to continue its current aggressive pace of road repairs.

“We’re trying to catch up on how many years of that not being done and money taken out of it. We’ll eventualy get there,” he said, adding the wheel tax movement across the state is in direct relation to the lack of road funding provided to local governments by the state.

La Crosse Mayor Tim Kabat just this week proposed a wheel tax for funding road repairs. Padesky has not said yet whether he would support Kabat’s plan.