WisBusiness: Wolter updates unfolding plans for recovery and reinvestment funds

By Tracy Will

For WisBusiness.com

Office of Recovery and Reinvestment Chief Gary Wolter kept his day job as MG&E CEO because his brief role in the Doyle Adminstration that began last fall was “to start up” the process to tap into federal recovery funds. Now he’s set to leave May 8.

“We are at the point now to develop what the structure will be for the next three years. That is for a different set of people than those who set it up initially,” Wolter told the Downtown Madison Breakfast at the Madison Club.

Wisconsin stands to get about $5.5 billion through 130 federal-state programs.

Wolter said high-speed rail and health records digitization may quickly bring a positive impact to the Madison area, in addition to money for Madison schools, city planning, and local road repairs paid with the federal recovery funds.

“I’m sure the Epic people are looking into how that will affect them. Epic is well positioned to capture that share of the market,” he said of the money for health records. Regarding high-speed rail, he said, “establishing a line from Milwaukee to Madison is one of the highest priorities, one of the priorities makes Chicago a hub. We might be poised for going after the federal money, over $500 million to support high-speed rail from Madison to Chicago,” Wolter said

Wolter said some original expectations centered on a large Community Block Grant Fund allotment from Congress to be spent how the state wanted.

“It was assumed I’d have a dump truck full of money and be handing it out across Wisconsin. Good thing it isn’t the case.” Wolter quipped, explaining that much of the money will come into Wisconsin as competitive grants.

As for questions over how fast the stimulus money will arrive, Wolter cautioned against expecting a quick fix.

“We all heard the term ‘shovel-ready.’ That was the term we wanted to get the money into the system very quickly.”

But he said roadbuilders expressed concerns: “When DOT met with labor unions road builders and others, they said ‘If you put all the demand into the economy very quickly, if all money spent for six months, what do we do? Do I bring in full-time employee who leaves in six months, or use the existing work force and pay overtime, then hire temporary workers who are done after six months.’”

Extending the time that money is available can mean a better deal for taxpayers, he said.

“This will mean you will not get good pricing. You will not get as good a value than if you spread out the money over time. You will spread that demand out, then you will get better pricing,” Wolter said, suggesting the Doyle administration was taking that advice.

Wolter also said tapping into the federal recovery funds was a slow process because federal agencies were in transition between administrations, making it difficult to get information about how the different state-federal programs are administered.

“Part of the problem is that the people in charge of the programs are appointed positions and you have a change of administration. There may be five layers of appointees leaving jobs filled by newcomers. It takes time to get new people in charge,” he said.