Roscoe trustees review draft five‑year capital improvement plan, ask for priorities and quarterly updates

Tyler Nelson, the consultant leading work on Roscoe’s capital improvement planning, presented a preliminary five‑year capital improvement program (CIP) and asked trustees to provide any missing projects within the coming week as staff prepares revenue forecasts and budgetary cost estimates.

Nelson said the CIP will be a “multi‑year budgeting and scheduling of capital projects” covering construction or purchase of new permanent structures or renovation of existing infrastructure, and that it will use ranking metrics to prioritize projects. “A capital project is construction or purchase of a new permanent physical structure to satisfy new community needs or renovation or improvement of existing physical infrastructure to lengthen service life or continue satisfying existing community needs,” Nelson said.

The board heard why the plan matters: a five‑year CIP sets revenue assumptions, identifies projects that can realistically be funded, and creates a transparent record of planned work for residents and grantors. Nelson described metrics staff proposes to use when scoring projects, including public safety (accident history, failing bridges), economic development potential, available outside funding or grants, project readiness (permitting or utility constraints), alignment with the comprehensive plan and public impact.

Nelson used Riverside Park as an example of a multi‑year project. He described a phased progression that could start with demolition of a deteriorated shelter and go on to design work, a state boating‑access grant application, construction of a boat ramp and later parking improvements, with each step placed in a different fiscal year depending on grant timing: “We program the construction of that boat ramp in 2027,” he said.

The draft project list staff provided to trustees covers multiple categories: a residential streets program tied to the recent street study, larger arterial collector resurfacing (which staff recommended phasing), bridges and culverts (Nelson flagged the Willowbrook Road box culvert over North Kinnikinnet Creek as load‑posted, limiting fire apparatus access), sidewalk‑gap and multiuse path work, traffic signal and turnaround improvements for emergency access, drainage and stormwater maintenance, park improvements (Riverside Park and Porter Park elements were discussed elsewhere on the agenda), municipal building maintenance and smaller capital purchases such as IT equipment and public‑works vehicles.

Trustees pressed for clarity on prioritization and tracking. “I would like to see more of this,” Trustee Saima said, asking for a clearer project‑management timeline and quarterly updates so the board knows which long‑standing items have progressed. Several trustees advocated phasing large projects rather than attempting full reconstructions in a single year; Nelson agreed that strategic phasing can make multimillion‑dollar projects achievable over several budget cycles and pointed to the Willowbrook box culvert and Love Road as examples where a structure or culvert could be advanced ahead of full roadway reconstruction.

Trustees discussed forming a small trustee subcommittee or scheduling regular check‑ins to review the plan and tracking. Nelson and staff asked trustees to email any project additions or modifications within roughly a week so staff can assemble a final list, run preliminary cost estimates and obtain revenue projections before returning with a draft program for the board and the upcoming budget season. Nelson noted the plan will use budgetary (rounded) cost estimates, not bid‑level designs: “You’re going to see dollar amounts rounded off to the nearest 10,000 or 100,000. It’s a budgetary number,” he said.

Board President Gustafson and other trustees emphasized that available funding will determine what can be advanced in 2026; as Nelson explained, the CIP is intended to link projects to funding and to enable applications for grants where appropriate (he referenced the Illinois Department of Natural Resources boating grants and state transportation economic development programs as potential revenue sources). Nelson invited trustees to use the draft as a conversation starter rather than a finished product.

Next steps: staff will collect trustee project requests, develop preliminary budgetary cost estimates and revenue forecasts, apply the board’s ranking metrics and return with a draft CIP ahead of the fiscal‑year budgeting process. Trustees asked that staff provide regular (quarterly) status updates once the plan is underway.