Mayor Soglin shared his Capital Budget message with Department and Division Heads as well as City Alders today.

To: Department and Division Heads

From: Mayor Paul R. Soglin

Subject: 2014 Capital Budget Target

Thanks to your efforts over the past two years, we have made considerable progress on controlling capital costs. However, we must continue to hold the line on the capital budget and the resulting borrowing while balancing the need to protect and maintain our infrastructure.

This will require careful planning by each agency. I understand the difficulty posed by successive years of tight budgets, but the growth of the capital budget continues to impact the operating budget.

I appreciate your cooperation and thoughtful weighing of priorities within your agency budgets.

Toward that end, you should adhere to the following policies and targets in developing the proposed 2014 capital budget for your agency:

• Limit the overall general obligation and revenue bonding authority for your agency to the amounts included in the capital improvement plan (CIP) adopted as part of the 2013 capital budget. Seek to remove projects or reduce anticipated costs based on updated information.

• Provide information on new projects not currently in the capital improvement plan as a supplemental request and do not add these projects to the CIP at this time. This approach will allow these projects to be more carefully reviewed.

• Review projects scheduled for 2014 in the current capital improvement program and seek to appropriately allocate funding to the years the costs will realistically be incurred. Projects are often implemented over multiple years due to timing of site acquisition, planning and design considerations, regulatory approvals, and construction timetables.

• Submit project reduction plans that total 10% of 2014 general obligation bonding amounts included in the 2013 adopted CIP. These plans should also include reductions equal to 10% of the 2013 adopted CIP amounts for 2015 through 2018. Projects deferred from one year to another within the six-year period of the CIP should not be included in the reduction plan. This reduction plan requirement also applies to Water Utility and Sewer Utility revenue bond amounts in the CIP. Reduction plans should describe the implications of the proposed reductions.

I look forward to working with you and the Finance Department in the coming weeks on this important task.