CIP Comparison

I am going to start writing a series of blogs comparing the 2010-2014 Capital Improvement Plan with the 2011-2015 Capital Improvement Plan. I started looking at the plans in depth after the city identified that there was a $3.8 million unreserved and undesignated and questioned what should be done with the money.

The 2010 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) identified $3.8 million as unreserved and undesignated and the administration started talking about about how to spend the money publicly in the April/May time frame.  City finances are complicated. The city does an excellent job of putting the financial reports, budgets and CIP's out on the official city website for public review. The test is understanding it as a lay person.

The Capital Improvement Plan, commonly known as the CIP, sets out projects for the upcoming year and a wish list of projects for the remaining 4 years of the plan. Projects get deleted and/or moved out or moved up dependent upon priorities.

Here are the totals for the Capital Improvement Plans:

2010-2014 CIP: $472,205,675 (former mayor's administration)
2011-2015 CIP: $387,146,485 (current mayor's administration)

As an FYI, the Event Center was not identified as a city project in the 2010-2014 CIP. The Event Center is listed as a Project 000122 in the 2011-2015 CIP. $500,000 was programmed for 2011 and $500,000 was programmed for 2012. There is no money programmed in 2013, 2014 and 2015 for an Event Center. There is no money identified pertaining to the estimated impact on the annual operating budget (the General Fund) in this plan.

The 2012-2016 Capital Improvement Plan should be coming out in the near future. City Charter 5.11 requires the mayor to submit a capital improvement plan to the city council no later than July 1. The City Council will hold hearings on the projects submitted by the Administration and, by City Charter 5.12, must adopt the CIP on or before the 30th day of September of the current fiscal year.