The Planner Platform

For the past year, Planning staff has been working behind the scenes on updating the Capital Improvement Program. The team researched CIP Best practices and learned from innovative municipalities across the nation that are using their capital improvement programs to evaluate and prioritize their community infrastructure needs. CIPs are designed to support community planning by acting as an implementation tool for comprehensive and community plans. As plans are developed, communities work together to create a shared vision and the goals and objectives that make that vision a reality. CIPs work to be the “builder” of the vision, meaning that the program dives into the fine details, like cost estimates and ranking projects. However, this connection between community planning and implementation can only happen when two components are in place. The first component requires that the municipality has the authority to complete the nominated projects, and the second component requires that nominations represent known goals and objectives of the community.

The MSB has had a CIP for seven decades and it has gone through many updates and revisions. Staff found that sometime in the late 1980s, the MSB started using the CIP to manage road and transportation “wish lists” for communities. Throughout the last three decades, communities have seen this transition and began to nominate projects that were primarily road projects. Without the power to complete the vast majority of the projects on the list, it should come as no surprise that the CIP in its current form has devolved into a disorganized wish list that provides no real outcome for communities.

Planning staff is dedicated to changing that! The changes to the CIP will result in a prioritized list of community-approved projects for the MSB departments and Assembly to consider when they are looking at projects for the Capital Budget. We will do that by implementing new criteria that each project must meet before being passed to the scoring committee. The new criteria for valid CIP projects are:

1. Project must fall within current Borough powers as laid out by MSB Code, Title 1.10 Borough Powers, excluding service areas.  
2. Project cannot be considered routine maintenance or equipment replacement.   
3. Project must have a useful life of 5 years or more.   
4. Project must have a single acquisition cost of $20,000 or more.   
5. Project must align with a goal or objective of an existing Assembly-adopted plan. 

As of April 2022, MSB residents can submit nominations to the CIP on a rolling basis. Project evaluation begins annually on August 1. Internally, Planning staff will work to produce a prioritized list of capital infrastructure projects that come directly from the 16 Assembly-adopted Comprehensive Plans, the Core Area Plan, and the Borough-wide Comprehensive Plan. Plan projects and public nominations will be scored against the same criteria.

Planning staff will reach out directly to community councils to schedule a presentation on the new CIP process and offer CIP workshops this summer to help residents with the new process.

If you have any questions regarding the Capital Improvement Program, please get in touch with Kelsey Anderson at 907-861-8525 or kelsey.anderson@matsugov.us