Council reviews Capital Improvement Program at workshop

As the scheduled date to adopt the City of Auburn's budget approaches, city council members got their first look at the Capital Improvement Program last month. While City Manager John Donlevy's presentation mostly focused on capital projects over the next two years, the Capital Improvement Program actually covers projects through 2027. "This is a very visionary budget," Donlevy said. "In total if you look at the next five years, we have projects totaling almost $37 million." The overall Capital Improvement Program has eight "key areas" which include the Auburn Airport, wastewater and treatment collection, transportation programs (streets and roads), transit programs, public safety and general facilities, energy solutions, broadband and general planning in support of capital. The focus on many of the projects is asset management, Donlevy said. Through various capital projects the city will aim to modernize systems to inventory, assess and program how all the city's nearly half-billion dollars worth of assets are utilized. Donlevy said the city wants to move from reactive to proactive maintenance decision making. Some of the tools they will use will include NexGen's Asset Management System for fleet, facilities and equipment data, IT Pipes for sewer pipe inspections and StreetSaver for pavement conditions on streets and roads. For the city's sewer collection and waste water treatment facility projects include flow monitoring system, three lift station upgrades, 10 Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems, capital replacement program, collection system replacement and pipe lining. Donlevy explained the city currently has to manually check the city's sewer lift stations. Adding a SCADA system will aid the city in addressing sewage issues as it records all the information happening at all the lift stations. "A SCADA system will be a very important addition to the overall program because it is literally putting brains to right now where everything is done manually," Donlevy said. "It's going to revolutionize how we do sewer maintenance." Improving sewer systems is just one part of the Capital Improvement Program, which Donlevy said will start with an inventory. "The priority is that we are going to get the inventory, we are going to get the data and then we are going to come in with the projects," Donlevy said. Airport projects, which mostly come out of the city's airport enterprise fund, include a master plan, helicopter parking area, East End utilities and project, terminal building feasibility, taxiway rehabilitation, runway expansion, pavement maintenance, facility upgrades and modernizations. Streets and storm drains will include a Pavement Mangement Implementation which will include an annual overlay and rehabilitation, crack sealing and policy-based decision making. The city will also log storm inspection and inventory. A $1.4 million Crimson Court and Sunrise Ridge storm drain project is already in early stages. Curb replacement, wayfinding and Downtown and Old Town streetscape projects are also included in the capital plans. For Auburn's transit system, there will be fleet upgrades of two electric busses and program upgrades to offerings for citizens. The capital improvement plan included a list of fire and police related specialty tools expected to be added in the next two years including a new fire engine, breathing apparatus and extraction equipment. Fire stations and police facilities will get various upgrades and repairs as part of the capital improvements. Utilizing funds from the American Rescue Plan Act, Donlevy shared the city has plans to pitch in $150,000 each respectively to the 1103 High Street building and the Carnegie Library building. The Capital improvement plan also included environmental mitigation projects and energy projects such as EV Charging expansion, plans for upgraded fleets, power expansion, solar projects and waste to energy projects. In addition to discussing the Capital Improvement Plan, the city council also reviewed and discussed more details surrounding the city's two-year budget development. For the two year budget, preliminary numbers show that the city's two-year revenue is $33.6 million and the two-year expenditures are $33.8 million with approximately a $204,000 deficit. The first opportunity for the city to vote on the city budget will be at their June 13 meeting, if they have revisions the city may bring the budget back during the June 27 meeting.