Finance committee reviews draft five-year capital improvement program, flags Measure C constraints

Santa Barbara City Finance Committee members received an informational briefing March 4 on the city’s draft five-year Capital Improvement Program, which staff said lists about $2 billion in identified capital needs and focuses on matching the first two years of projects to anticipated funding.

The draft CIP is a planning document that looks ahead five years but stresses the first two years because those years form the basis of the city’s upcoming biennial capital budget. “This is a document we put together, every 2 years and it looks ahead, 5 years,” Acting Public Works Director Brian DeMour said during the presentation.

DeMour told the committee the draft identifies more work than available funding and that staff used a new scoring methodology to help prioritize projects without treating the score as the sole decision factor. “So you can see here we’re at about $2,000,000,000 worth of identified capital needs within our plan,” DeMour said, noting about half of that total is categorized as future needs rather than immediate first-two-year priorities.

Why it matters: the CIP determines which capital projects the city will actively seek to fund, and it is used to pursue grants and plan debt or cash funding. DeMour warned that Measure C revenue — a primary source for many non-enterprise programs — will be constrained in fiscal years 2026 and 2027 because of a roughly $15 million cash-funded component of the police station project scheduled in that period. Staff estimated annual Measure C revenue in the “$34,000,000 ballpark.”

Major program highlights: staff presented program-level summaries rather than project-level detail. Notable items include: - Airport: 37 listed projects, funded largely by FAA grants and airport revenues; major items include the Terminal Improvement Project and Taxiway B extension. - Water and wastewater: water has 11 projects (including the Vic Trace reservoir replacement and continued desalination program work); wastewater has eight projects and is using approved rate increases through FY 2028 and state revolving fund loan options for capital. - Downtown parking: 17 projects are listed but the downtown parking enterprise remains in a structural deficit and lacks funding to fully maintain facilities; staff recommended a parking structures and facility assessment update be funded to inform a five-year plan. - Waterfront: 27 projects, including planned marina replacements and ongoing maintenance at Stearns Wharf and marina facilities. - Streets and Creeks: Streets listed 61 projects with reliance on Measure C and grants for capital; Creeks (primarily Measure B-funded) highlighted the Mission Creek restoration tied to the De La Vena bridge replacement. - Internal services and IT: Information Technology grew to 12 listed projects, including a city radio infrastructure replacement that coordinates regionally. - Parks and recreation: 35 projects, with Dwight Murphy and Ortega Park among items called out.

Project prioritization and transparency: the city created a multi-factor scoring tool that assigns points across categories such as external funding, budget impact, risk management, legal obligation, public safety, community benefit and project readiness. Council Member Santa Maria asked how the scoring was applied and whether committee members could see the project-level scores. DeMour said staff used quantitative inputs on each category (for example, percent of external funding and readiness) and that the current draft does not publish the raw per-project scoring because staff felt it could “create more questions than answers” at this stage; he said the methodology is described in the draft and staff will consider whether to publish more detail.

Downtown parking funding approach: staff confirmed Measure C funded some downtown parking capital in FY 2025. With Measure C constrained for FY 2026–27, staff said they are evaluating whether to pause most capital work this year and instead fund a facility needs assessment. They said any Measure C support would likely be structured as a loan to the downtown parking enterprise to be repaid if parking revenues recover.

Santa Barbara Clean Energy and other enterprises: staff clarified that Santa Barbara Clean Energy is classified as an enterprise fund and currently has little capital investment because its work mainly uses contracts and power purchase agreements; some capital may be used for EV chargers or other projects.

Next steps and timing: staff said the full council will receive the draft CIP next week; the document will be “trued up” to match final budget deliberations and the adopted budget in June. The presentation was informational and no committee action or votes were taken on March 4.

Members of the public did not speak to the item during the meeting. Staff from multiple city divisions remained available to answer follow-up questions after the presentation.