Staff outlines new five‑year capital plan process and software rollout

City staff told the Capital Improvement Committee Thursday that the city is moving from decentralized, document‑by‑department capital lists to a centralized five‑year capital plan loaded into new software, and they described some printing and template problems encountered during rollout. Mary Anne (staff member) gave the presentation and said the city previously operated a decentralized process in which departments and TID districts maintained separate lists. The new approach is intended to show a single five‑year plan so council, staff and the public can see cumulative needs and the fiscal impacts over multiple years. “Our goal was to do a better job of putting together a 5 year capital plan that showed in 1 location what all of our needs were,” Mary Anne said. She described two technical issues that affected the packet distributed for the meeting: images failed to appear in the printed document and some printed date fields were shifted by one year because of a template problem. Mary Anne told members the vendor is correcting the issues and that updated documents will be provided; she said deferred projects will roll forward automatically in the new system, reducing future re-submittals by departments. The new template also maps each project to planning documents, strategic goals, known timelines, funding sources and expected operating impacts, Mary Anne said, so the committee can better evaluate tradeoffs and see how projects tie to adopted plans like the comprehensive plan or transportation improvement program. Committee members had no substantive objections to the change; staff said corrected books would be available for the next meeting.