Gloucester presents $146 million five-year capital improvement plan; public hearing set for Feb. 4

Carol Steele, Gloucester County administrator, presented a recommended FY26–FY30 capital improvement plan (CIP) that lists 33 requests totaling $146,000,000 and a net local cost of roughly $131,000,000 after anticipated grant funding. The board voted to set a public hearing on the plan for Feb. 4.

Steele told the board the document "has a lot of blood, sweat, and tears in it for many different people," and said the presentation intentionally omitted the utilities operating and capital budgets so those can be presented together in March. She said the county used a 4% inflation adjustment and a 5% projected interest rate in its planning assumptions.

The CIP groups projects into PAYGO and debt-financed requests. Large items in the plan include a proposed $48,000,000 community center, a proposed station 1 replacement estimated at about $17,000,000, and a replacement/overhaul of county enterprise software (finance, permitting, inspections, utilities) with a roughly $2,000,000 implementation estimate plus an ongoing subscription/support cost Steele…