Major Highway Projects Reform

For years, citizens and public interest groups have questioned the state’s spending on highway expansion projects – called Major Highway Projects. 

Major Highway Projects are the most extensive and most expensive highway projects carried out by WisDOT.  By statutory definition the projects must cost more than $5,000,000 and meet certain criteria for miles of expansion. 

In February 2003, Senator Carol Roessler (R-Oshkosh) and Representative Suzanne Jeskewitz (R-Menomonee Falls), co-chairs of the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Audits, led their committee to request a Legislative Audit Bureau investigation of the Major Highway Projects program.

In the Spring of 2004, as a result of the audit findings and the work of Senator Roessler and Rep. Jeskewitz, Governor Doyle signed into law the most significant piece of transportation reform legislation in recent years.  To learn more about these reforms, click here.

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