City of La Porte Operating Budgets Summary Report

Browse Search

'I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I Capital Improvements Program n, h-- ,v ~~ I? ~" - 1. Introduction The City of La Porte's Capital Improvements Program (CIP) is a plan for both long and short range development of the physical plant of City government. It covers those items we typically consider infrastructure, such as streets, water and sewer lines, stormwater drainage systems, and City facilities. The latter category includes such facilities as police and fire stations, recreation centers, maintenance facilities, general office buildings and public works facilities. The CIP covers all facilities and infrastructure which City government owns or has responsibility for. The CIP is intended to insure that needed projects will be undertaken according to an established set of priorities and that revenues will be available to finance such projects when they are needed. The CIP combines elements of long range planning, mid-range programming, and current year budgeting to identify the City's capital needs and the means of meeting them, with the process covering a five year period. The CIP has as an important goal: The encouragement of dep~rtments to establish an internal planning process to identify capital needs with sufficient lead time so that decisions may be made on the most advantageous means of financing them. The Capital Improvements Program consists of three elements: Planning Long range capital improvement plans are developed for each year of City government for the next five years. Programming Known and anticipated revenues from various sources are programmed in the CIP and a financing package is developed for all recommended projects. The one year element of the CIP directs the budgeting of various capital and operating funds which are part of the City's annual budget development process. With regards to specific projects covered by the CIP, it is somewhat difficult to establish a definition of a capital improvement which can be given universal application. Generally, a capital improvement has the following characteristics: 1_ Relatively high monetary value (at least&- ~ 2. Long life (will last at least five years). Budgeting 1