Charlotte County received an update Oct. 14 on the Resiliency and Modernization Program, the grant-funded effort to create an Integrated Master Plan (IMP) and a decision framework that will help the county prioritize utility investments.

The presentation: Sharon Wright, resilience practice lead for HDR, presented the draft IMP and described how consultants and staff developed a prioritization rubric through workshops with cross‑departmental staff. The rubric uses six weighted criteria — public health and safety, reliability and resilience, community growth and enrichment, financial stewardship, efficiency and level of service — and a checklist-based project sheet that staff can use to calculate weighted scores and attach rationales for each score. Consultants said they compiled more than 200 candidate projects from multiple master plans and scored them using the framework to help produce a dashboard and a mapping tool staff can use to view investments geographically and by criterion.

Why it matters: HDR and staff told the board the IMP is intended to make prioritization more transparent, to help line up projects with funding opportunities (including state programs such as Resilient Florida and SRF options), and to document why projects are or are not recommended for grant pursuit. The consultants stressed the plan is a living document and that the dashboard and workbook tools should be updated periodically.

Board discussion and concerns: Commissioners asked about how staff and the public were used in the weighting and scoring; HDR said weighting was established through facilitated workshops and live polling with staff across divisions and that public input has been limited to the process rather than scoring of individual projects. Commissioners favored the idea of quarterly updates and recommended revisiting weights periodically and seeking targeted public polling or engagement on priorities. Commissioners also asked whether the county would maintain the dashboard internally and how staff would sustain updates; HDR and staff said training and a modest maintenance plan were part of implementation.

Grant/compliance note: HDR confirmed the program had completed two of three grant tasks; final IMP and roadmap remain to be delivered and the public meeting Oct. 14 constituted the second required grant public meeting.

Ending: Commissioners endorsed the framework as a tool to make investment decisions more objective and asked staff to return with final plan materials and recommended steps for ongoing maintenance and funding alignment.