The state legislature's finance committee delayed funding to construct a new facility for the Milwaukee-Chicago train line Wednesday.
Although the Joint Finance Committee approved an additional $2.5 million request from the Department of Transportation, it denied the department's request to spend $5 million on planning and designing the new train car maintenance facility.
The committee delayed additional work on the train line maintenance facility until the DOT submits a report assessing the cost of building the facility in Milwaukee.
The decision comes after Gov. Scott Walker rejected $810 million in federal money last year that covered costs on the new facility, as well as a new line that would have connected Madison and Milwaukee.
Democrats derided the Republican-controlled committee's vote, calling the $2.5 million allocation "a waste of taxpayer money."
"Today's action by the Joint Finance Committee would have been unnecessary if not for Governor Walker's shortsightedness and rigid partisanship," Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca, D-Kenosha, said in a statement.
