Housing & Neighborhood Development
451 South State Street

PO Box 145488
Salt Lake City UT 84114-5488
801.535.6150
FAX 801.535.6131
Office hours: M-F 8 am to 5 pm

Capital Improvement Program

Introduction

Salt Lake City’s Capital Improvement Program (CIP), is an orderly plan for meeting the community's needs for physical infrastructure facilities such as streets, parks, and public buildings. The CIP is a comprehensive schedule of capital improvements needed within the City and establishes a program to accomplish those needs within the City's ability to pay.

Comprehensive capital improvement programming enables a city to coordinate all proposed projects with each other and with other long-term community plans with the assurance that projects will be undertaken in the order of their need. An effective CIP requires annual review and monitoring of the community by the City to avoid out-dated emphasis and misdirection of effort.

General Fund Capital Improvement Definition

The definition of general fund capital improvements is as follows: Capital improvements involve the construction, purchase, or renovation of buildings, parks, streets, or other physical structures. A capital improvement must have a useful life of five or more years. It also must provide one of the following two elements: has a cost of $50,000 or more or satisfies the functionality of a capital asset. A capital improvement is not a recurring capital outlay item (such as a motor vehicle or a fire engine) or a maintenance expense (such as fixing a leaking roof or painting park benches). Acquisition of equipment is not a capital project unless it is an integral part of the capital project.

General Fund Versus Enterprise Fund

Capital improvement planning and implementation within Salt Lake City are comprised of two distinct components: 1) improvements made by the enterprise fund departments consisting of the Department of Airports, Golf, and Public Utilities; and 2) improvements made by the general fund, Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), and other grants including federal, state, local, private, and special improvement district funds. Any capital improvement applications for projects or services provided by the Department of Airports, Golf, or Public Utilities should be submitted to those departments.

CIP 10-Year Plan

Projects can not be considered for funding unless found in the CIP 10-Year Plan. If a project being requested is not part of the 10-Year Plan, it will be considered for inclusion in the plan, and may be considered for funding in future years.

CIP Development Summary

The CIP development process is on going. Once each year capital improvement applications are solicited from the community and City departments. After a thorough review of applications a recommended CIP is presented by the Citizen Board and by the City CIP Staff to the Mayor. The Mayor then uses these recommendations to prepare the Mayor's Recommended CIP and presents this to the City Council. The Council then reviews the Mayor's Recommended CIP and prepares and adopts the final CIP and Capital Budget.

City CIP Staff

The City CIP Staff is comprised of staff members from the Community and Economic Development Department. Their responsibility is to complete the following:

• Review applications for completeness and accuracy.

• Evaluate each application to help verify that it complies with and enhances the intent of the City 10-Year CIP Plan, Vision and Strategic Plan, the “Creating Tomorrow Together” Futures Commission Report, the Facilities Master Plan, applicable community master plans, and departmental master plans.

• Staff and Facilitate Citizen Board Review and Process.

• Monitor and evaluate CIP Budget.

Citizen Board

The Citizen Board is comprised of City residents from the City’s seven Council Districts. Their CIP involvement is on-going throughout the CIP process. Their responsibility is to:

• Review current capital improvement needs and available funds.

• Review the status of the current CIP projects and may tour projects to evaluate the progress of the CIP on an annual basis.

• Review each application using a structured evaluation format.

• Hear project presentations by applicants in order to better understand the scope of the proposed projects.

• Tour proposed projects to aid in understanding the scope and logistics of the proposed projects.

• Select and compile priority listing of projects and recommend budget modifications as appropriate.

• Recommend budgets for proposals including contingency and percent for art.

• Present recommended priority list to Mayor.

Mayor's Recommended CIP

The Mayor evaluates the recommendations received from the Citizen Board to aid in creating the Mayor's Recommended CIP. This includes a priority listing of the highest-ranking projects recommended for funding. The Mayor then presents the Mayor's Recommended CIP to the City Council.

Council Approval and Budget Adoption

The City Council sets a public hearing date for the CIP once the Mayor's Recommended CIP has been received. Staff is available to brief the Council on the proposed projects, if desired.

The City Council evaluates the Citizen Board’s and Mayor's Recommended CIP to aid in creating a CIP priority list with the highest-ranking projects recommended for funding. The list may also include a budget for contingency and percent for art. The Council then adopts the funded portion of the priority list as the Capital Improvement Budget.

CIP Implementation

The Capital Improvement Budget becomes part of the Salt Lake City Operating and Capital Budget. After the budget becomes effective on July 1st of each year, the budgeted projects will be completed according to City policies and procedures.