Council hears CIP trade-offs: 13 candidate projects clash with debt capacity, BFAC urges data-driven trade-off tools

City capital planners told the council the ten-year CIP will be constrained by debt capacity and rising operating support needs, and staff urged careful prioritization of new projects.

Arthur Wicks of the Office of Management and Budget summarized the recent CIP work session: council identified 13 candidate priorities; five were reaffirmations of existing CIP projects while the remainder were unfunded additions that would add roughly $125 million to $160 million to the 10-year plan when costs and timing escalations are included. Wicks warned that moving forward with all additions would push the city within $25 million of its adopted debt limit by fiscal 2031 and would require roughly $9 million in additional annual operating support if all projects proceeded.

"If we were to add to all these projects, the blue line, we are well within the margin of error, and that's why you don't do that," Wicks said, urging council to weigh reductions, deferrals or retiming to preserve debt capacity and operating affordability.

The Budget and Fiscal Affairs Advisory Committee (BFAC) presented companion recommendations emphasizing transparency, benchmarking, and development of tools to help council make tradeoffs. BFAC Chair John Ruthanowski described a proposed set of six memos and a budget education series designed to improve public engagement, provide decision-making frameworks and evaluate options such as staggering collective-bargaining cycles and prioritizing projects by readiness and operating cost impact.

Council members asked staff to produce more granular analyses showing the debt-service and operating-budget consequences of specific project combinations (for example, timing Chick Armstrong Rec Center and the Cora Kelly school project together) so the council can understand options for retiming or staging work to reduce near-term pressure.

Staff said next steps include refining project readiness, updating cost escalations, and integrating council priorities into the manager's February proposal along with additional memos from BFAC.