INTRODUCTION

Lawrence, like all other cities, is facing the challenging task of providing an increasing number of urban services with limited financial resources. A priority of the City is the planning and improvement of public facilities. The construction of streets, schools, water and sewer lines, recreation facilities and public safety facilities must keep pace with the changing population. Worn out and antiquated facilities must be repaired or replaced in order to sustain the level of existing governmental services and to accommodate citizen demands for new ones.

Capital improvements programming is a tool to assist in the provision of urban services. It is a method by which the community's decision makers may look beyond year-to-year budgeting to determine what, when, where and how future improvements are to be made. At the same time, it can assist the City in taking advantage of alternative methods of financing, including federal and state assistance.

The primary factors that create the need for public investment in facilities are the continuous growth of the community and the aging of existing facilities. Lawrence's comprehensive or long-range plan, Horizon 2020, provides the basis for the future development of the community and the foundation for capital improvements programming.

Without adequate planning, public improvements may not be given the appropriate priorities, be properly located, or realized due to lack of available financial resources. In addition, financial inefficiency and reduced public service will result. To avoid such consequences and to achieve the greatest possible economy and efficiency is the goal of the Capital Improvement Plan and Capital Budget.

CAPITAL PROJECT DEFINED

A capital project is defined as a project with a minimum total cost of $50,000 resulting in 1) creation of a new fixed asset; or 2) enhancement to an existing fixed asset with a life expectancy of at least 20 years. Examples include construction or expansion of public buildings, new storm and sanitary sewers, water line upgrades and extensions, the acquisition of land for public use, planning and engineering costs, and street construction.

Vehicle replacements less than $35,000 or improvement projects considered as operational, recurring, or maintenance are not considered capital projects and are typically funded through the City's Operating Budget.

THE CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PLAN AND CAPITAL BUDGET

This Capital Improvement Plan represents a schedule of major public improvement projects and expenditures for the next six years. It is an attempt to look ahead to determine the needs for public improvements and then schedule them within the capabilities of the City's financial resources.

Projects from the first year of the Plan are recommended by the City Manager as part of the annual Operating and Capital Improvement Budget for the next fiscal year. However, because resources are limited, it may not be possible to recommend funding all of the projects from the first year of the plan.

THE CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PLAN DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

The Capital Improvement Plan is prepared annually from lists of projects and improvements submitted or suggested by the public or the various city departments and agencies. The projects are reviewed by the Capital Improvement Administrative Review Committee, who holds a series of meeting to review the projects submitted by all the departments. The Committee uses a set of criteria and scoring matrix to evaluate and prioritize the projects and create a preliminary Capital Improvement Plan which is forwarded to the Planning Commission.

The Planning Commission reviews the preliminary plan for consistency with the comprehensive plan and, if appropriate, submits the preliminary plan to the City Commission for consideration. The City Commission either accepts the plan with or without amendments, or rejects it. Thus, the Capital Improvement Plan becomes an essential guide to basic community improvements.

THE CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT ADMINISTRATIVE REVIEW COMMITTEE

The Capital Improvement Administrative Review Committee is made up of the City Manager, Assistant City Manager, representatives from several city departments including Public Works, Utilities, Fire Medical, Parks and Recreation, and Police. Two representatives from the Planning Department and the Budget Manager also serve on the Committee along with representatives of both the City Commission and Planning Commission.

PROJECT EVALUATION CRITERIA AND SCORING MATRIX

The Capital Improvement Administrative Review Committee uses a set of criteria to evaluate and prioritize the projects submitted for the Capital Improvement Plan. In addition, the committee uses a scoring matrix. The intent of this matrix is to provide consistency and objectivity in the scoring process. The criteria and scoring matrix are shown below.

Capital Improvement Plan

Scoring Matrix

	Possible Scores
Criteria	0	1	2
consistency with community goals and plans	project is inconsistent with City's Comprehensive Plan or does nothing to advance the City Commission's strategic goals	project is consistent the City's Comprehensive Plan but does little to advance the City Commission's strategic goals	project are directly consistent with the City's Comprehensive Plan and advances the strategic goals of the City Commission
public health and safety	project would have no impact on existing public health and/or safety status	project would increase public health and/or safety but is not an urgent, continual need or hazard	project addresses an immediate, continual safety hazard or public health and/or safety need
Mandates or other legal requirements	project is not mandated or otherwise required by court order, judgment, or interlocal agreements	project would address anticipated mandates, other legal requirements, or interlocal agreements	project required by federal, state, or local mandates, grants, court orders and judgments; required as part of interlocal agreements
maintains or improves standard of service	project not related to maintaining an existing standard of service	project would maintain existing standard of service	project would address deficiencies or problems with existing services; would establish new service
extent of benefit	projects would benefit only a small percentage of citizens or particular neighborhood or area	project would benefit a large percentage of citizens or many neighborhoods or areas	project would benefit all of the citizens, neighborhoods, or areas
related to other projects	project is not related to other projects in the Capital Improvement Plan already underway	project linked to other projects in the Capital Improvement Plan already underway but not essential to their completion	project essential to the success of other projects identified in Capital Improvement Plan already underway
public perception of need	project has no public support or established voter appeal; is not identified by the citizenry as a need	project has been identified by the citizenry as a need in the community but lacks strong support	project has technical and strong political support, project was suggested by or even demanded by large number of citizens
efficiency of service	project would have no impact on the efficiency of service	project would result in savings by eliminating obsolete or inefficient facilities	project would result in significant savings by increasing the efficiency of the performance of a service or reducing the on-going cost of a service or facility
supports economic development	project would discourage or directly prevent capital investment, decrease the tax base, decrease valuation, or decrease job opportunities	project would have no impact on capital investment, the tax base, valuation, or job opportunities	project would directly result in capital investment, increased tax base, increased valuation, or improved job opportunities
environmental quality	project would have a negative effect on the environmental quality of the city	project would not effect the environmental quality of the city	project would improve the sustainability of the environment
feasibility of project	project is unable to proceed due to obstacles (land acquisition, easements, approval required)	minor obstacles exist, project is not entirely ready to proceed	project is entirely ready to proceed, no obstacles (land acquisition or easements, approvals required, etc.) exist
opportunity cost	if deferred, the increase in project costs would be less than the rate of inflation	if deferred, the increase in project costs would be equal to inflation	if deferred, the increase in project costs would be greater than the rate of inflation
operational budget impact	project would significantly increase debt service, installment payments, personnel or other operating costs or decrease revenues	project would neither increase or decrease debt service, installment payment, personnel or other operating costs or revenues	project would decrease debt service, installment payments, personnel or other operating costs or increase revenues

The score agreed upon by the Committee for a project becomes its priority ranking. The scores and priority ranking for all of the projects in this year plan can be found later in this document.

ANTICIPATED FUNDING SOURCES

The 2007-2012 Capital Improvement Plan contains 164 projects submitted by the various City Departments, developers, and the public. The total cost of all projects submitted for all six years of the plan represent an estimated expenditure of $ 305,004,700.

This Plan is anticipated to be financed by funds from a variety of funding sources. A description of each source is provided below.

General Obligation Bonds - Referred to as G.O. Bonds, these bonds are backed by the full faith and credit of the City. This means the City will pay back the bonds even if they have to raise taxes to do so. The City uses several funding sources to make principal and interest payments on these bonds. Property tax is used to make bond payments for some capital projects. Historically, a portion of sales tax revenue is used to make bond payments on Parks and Recreation capital projects. Fees and charges collected by the Storm Water Utility fees are used to make bond payments for capital projects related to storm water improvements. A portion of the property tax collected each year is used to make bond payments on other capital projects.

Special Assessments - Fees that are assessed on properties within a special benefit district formed to fund the construction of improvements that benefit the property in that district. Examples include streets, sidewalks, curbs and gutter, etc. The City issues General Obligation debt to pay for the improvements up front and then the debt is repaid over time with the monies collected from the property owners in the benefit district. Often, the City will participate in a benefit district and pay for a percent of the cost of the improvement. Typically, these are projects with a significant benefit, such as major arterial streets, that benefits the city as a whole.

Water and Sewage Revenue Bonds - A portion of the fees and charges paid by the users of the City’s water and sewer system are used to make principal and interest payments of debt issued by the City to fund improvements to these systems. Unlike General Obligation Bonds, this debt is only back by the revenues generated by the Water and Wastewater Utilities.

Current Revenue - It is sometimes possible to pay for a capital project without issuing debt. This is sometimes called “pay as you go financing” as is generally used to fund capital projects that are less costly and/or have a shorter useful life than others.

Federal Aid -Funds that the City receives directly from the Federal government in the form of grants and/or Federal Earmarks.

State Aid - Funds that the City receives directly from the Sate in the form of grants or loans, or any portion of a project paid for by the State of Kansas. Typically, for example, highway projects are partially funded by the Kansas Department of Transportation.

Other - Any source of funds not described above.

READING THIS DOCUMENT

The Capital Improvement Plan is divided into seven sections: a summary and a section for each year of the plan.

The summary contains the following:

Table 1 shows all of the projects proposed for all six years of the plan and the chapters of the comprehensive plan that are relevant to each.
Table 2 shows how the funding for all of the projects is spread out over the six years of the plan.
Table 3 summarizes the total cost and anticipated funding sources for all six years of the plan
Table 4 shows a breakdown of the General Obligation Bonds according to the source used to fund the debt service payments.
Table 5 shows the score sheets from the Administrative Review Committee for parks and recreation projects, which are historically funded by debt supported by sales tax revenue.
Table 6 shows the score sheets from the Administrative Review Committee for all of the other projects in the plan. It lists the projects by year and by the department that submitted the project. Projects labeled “develop” were submitted by private developers while projects labeled “public” were submitted by the public or by an advisory committee.

The sections for each year of the plan contain the following:

Table a shows the list of projects proposed for the year and the total scores provided by the Capital Improvement Administrative Review Committee.
Table b shows the cost elements for all of the projects proposed for the year.
Table c shows the anticipated funding sources for all the projects proposed for the year.
The project request forms as submitted by the City department, the public, and/or by the developer. In many instances, reoccurring projects or projects that span multiple years of the plan only appear in the section of the proposed first year of the project.

DISCLAIMER

The listing of projects presented in this plan is as comprehensive and complete as possible. However, it should always be kept in mind that unforeseen changing conditions will have an impact on any Plan. New and unexpected projects may be identified after this plan is approved, which will take on a higher priority for implementation. Therefore, the capital improvement reserve fund may also be used for projects that were not included in this plan.