Fairbanks North Star Borough public works staff laid out the FY27 capital improvement program (CIP) timeline, explained the borough's project delivery steps from initiation through closeout, and launched a public project-tracking website during the Assembly Committee of the Whole on July 17.

The presentation said the online nomination period for the FY27 CIP opens the day after the meeting and will remain open for about six weeks, closing the last day of August; the department also scheduled two public nomination workshops: July 29 at North Pole Library and July 30 at Noel Wien Library, both at 5:30 p.m. "Projects that have funding in the first four years of the CIP do not need to be renominated," public works staff said, and staff noted nominations with funding beyond that window must be renominated to remain under consideration.

The public works team explained how nominations move from administration review into a technical scoring process and then into the Finance Committee and Assembly review. Staff said the project-nomination resolution is planned for the Finance Committee on Oct. 2 and for the Assembly on Oct. 23, and the CIP resolution that places projects into fiscal years is planned for Finance on Feb. 5 and Assembly on Feb. 26. A separate technical-scoring committee composed of borough staff, a public member and rotating user-group or school-district representatives will score projects before they are placed in the CIP.

Deputy Director Janet Smith described the borough's six-phase project delivery model: initiation, scoping, design, bidding, construction and closeout. She said scoping produces a rough order-of-magnitude cost estimate and a "fixed limit of construction" that guides design and bidding, and that the borough commonly uses design-bid-build but will use design-build for some re-roof and playground projects. Smith also reviewed consultant contract practice: Public Works issues qualifications-based term contracts (no guaranteed work) and negotiates project-specific RFPs when a design fee exceeds term-contract limits.

On construction administration, staff said the borough typically retains 10% on contracts early in construction and reduces retention as work progresses; they are reviewing the retention policy because of interest paid on retained funds. Smith explained change orders are paid from project contingency and that substantial completion, punch lists and a one-year correction period are standard closeout steps.

Public works also announced a new projects website intended to help contractors, designers and the public plan for upcoming work. Project pages will show a short project description (drawn from the CIP), a location pin on a borough map, a tentative bid schedule (six months to two years) and a pie chart of funding sources. The site will link to the borough's CIP and to General Services' guidance for doing business with the borough; it will include a project team contact and a photo gallery for construction progress. The site went live the day of the meeting and staff said they will continue adjusting details.

Assembly members asked about several policy and process issues during the presentation: how the borough will work with the school district under a recent code change that now requires the district to present its nominations to the Finance Committee; how borough user-group representatives are chosen (staff said user groups normally nominate two representatives and borough staff generally fill those roles except for a standing public member); and how asset management ties into the CIP. Staff said the borough implemented a new asset-management and work-order system about five years ago that will help identify predictive maintenance needs over time and influence CIP prioritization.

On procurement and consultant selection, Public Works staff reiterated that selection of architecture and engineering professional services is qualifications-based as required by federal and state procurement rules, and that firms are ranked on qualifications and then negotiated for fees. Staff said they aim to publish ranges for anticipated construction budgets on the project pages to help contractors plan without disclosing detailed breakdowns of consultant, contingency and internal costs.

Why it matters: The schedule, scoring and public-tracking tools will determine which local infrastructure projects get funded and when. The new website is intended to increase competition for bids by giving contractors advance notice of likely work and to improve transparency for residents tracking local projects.