2021-2025 Capital Improvements Plan
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David's Council Preview |
This is budget season for the city: our next fiscal year begins on July 1, 2020. The pace of Council meetings is picking up, so you will see more newsletters being sent. Don't worry, the rate will slow down later this winter.
The Ames City Council meeting starts at 5:15 p.m. this Tuesday at City Hall (note the earlier start time). The agenda contains a single item:
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2020-2025 Capital Improvements Plan (CIP). This item will be the city staff's presentation of recommended five-year Capital Improvements Plan. I recommend reading the City Manager's letter to Council (also included in the full CIP). In it, he gives a good overview of the capital projects being planned for the coming years. The CIP calls for spending $229,975,222 over the next five years on these projects using many different funding sources, including federal and state funding and local tax proceeds.
For example, as described on p. 109 of the draft CIP, one of the appealing new projects is the Intelligent Transportation System infrastructure, which conducts real-time optimization of traffic and pedestrian flow at signalized intersections. Each year, traffic signal improvements rank as one of the highest priority areas from the Ames Resident Satisfaction Survey. This system will provide a significant improvement in efficiency and will provide reliable travel times during all times of the day. In its first year, FY 2020-2021, the system will be installed in S. Duff up to 13th St. and then over to Dayton Ave. at a cost of $1.8 million. In later years, the program will expand to additional streets. The majority of funding will come from the State via an Iowa Clean Air Attainment Program grant.
The CIP is updated every year for the following five years, which gives us an opportunity to revise or postpone plans in order to adapt to changing circumstances. The City doesn't spend money directly out of the CIP. Rather, when drafting the budget for each fiscal year, we basically cut-and-paste that year's projects from the latest CIP into the draft budget. Formally approving the fiscal year budget then gives us the authority to spend those funds, but only during that one year.
Thanks for reading,
David Martin
Third Ward Council Member