Alamance County manager proposes multi-year capital plan, recommends $10 million annual transfer for roofs and HVAC

County Manager Mr. Baker told the Alamance County Board of Commissioners on April 7, 2025, that the county’s proposed five-year capital improvement plan (CIP) and the FY2025–26 capital budget would prioritize deferred maintenance and move capital projects into multiyear funds. He recommended a $10 million general-fund transfer in FY2025–26 to address roofing and HVAC needs and proposed a $19 million capital budget for county government projects next year.

The plan matters because it shifts how the county budgets for long-term facility needs and seeks to reduce costly emergency repairs, Baker said. "We're changing where we fund these projects not how we fund them to give them some more flexibility because a lot of these projects are taking more than one year to complete," he said.

Baker described the CIP as a five-year planning and implementation tool for acquiring, developing, constructing, maintaining and renovating public facilities, infrastructure and equipment. Major expenditure drivers cited in the presentation included $5.1 million for roof replacements, $4.8 million for HVAC replacements and $1.4 million for technology equipment. The county government portion of the proposed capital budget is $19 million; when landfill enterprise projects are excluded, the document allocates roughly $13.6 million toward facility improvements for county operations.

The presentation noted one new facility recommendation: an EMS base in the Mebane area, proposed in response to rising emergency medical services response times in that part of the county. The budget includes $500,000 for design of the Mebane EMS base in FY2025–26; county staff estimated annual operating costs for the new base at about $1.5 million once it is staffed and operational.

Baker said the county is changing its budgeting approach by placing capital projects into multiyear project funds rather than keeping them in the general fund and by removing routine repair and maintenance from the CIP (those costs will remain in operating budgets). He told commissioners that the county funded an initial phase of roof and HVAC work in the current fiscal year with approximately $19 million in leftover bond funding and is now proposing a multi-year appropriation strategy to address subsequent needs.

Commissioners questioned funding sources and the work plan. Baker and staff said the county plans to diversify funding streams for capital needs, using a mix of general-fund transfers, landfill user fees, fund balance, grants and an installment loan proposed for the EMS base. Staff recommended adopting the CIP as part of the budget process, with a public hearing on June 2 and adoption scheduled as part of the June 16 budget action.

The board agreed to schedule a separate work session to dive deeper into the CIP. Commissioners settled on an April 28, 2025, 9:30 a.m. work session to review the CIP in more detail.

Background material provided to commissioners compares what the county funded in FY2024–25 with the proposed amounts for FY2025–26 and includes facility condition assessments performed by an outside engineering firm, which staff said inspected roofs and other structural elements at county facilities.

No formal vote adopting the CIP was taken at the April 7 meeting; staff recommended commissioners consider the CIP during the upcoming budget process.

Ending: The board asked staff to return with more detailed line-item information at the April 28 work session and then to include a capital budget vote as part of the June budget process.