By Dave Fidlin
With budget-building season about to get into full swing, Whitewater officials are kicking off the extensive review with a run-down of the city’s long-range capital improvement plans.
At a Common Council meeting Sept. 2, City Manager Cameron Clapper and Assistant City Manager Chris McDonell met with elected officials and discussed possible projects from 2015 to 2019.
“In order to be considered for inclusion in the schedule for capital improvements, a project must be non-recurring (occurs once every five years or less) and must meet or exceed a cost threshold of $5,000,” Clapper said.
Capital improvements cover the full gamut of city functions — from parks to policing. Some of the items on the list are new purchases, while others are designed to repair or replace existing infrastructure or items.
Based on a tentative list assembled by Clapper and McDonell, the list of capital requests throughout the next five years totals more than $32.43 million.
The breakdown, year by year, includes spending requests of $4.17 million in 2015, $19.5 million in 2016, $1.01 million in 2017, $7.26 million in 2018 and $490,000 in 2019.
As with most reviews of CIP budgets, streets are a focal point. During last week’s discussion, McDonell pointed to different factors that play into decisions made at the city level.
Case in point: The Wisconsin Department of Transportation has delayed the reconstruction of Highway 59 until 2020. The city has planned several of its own improvements alongside the state project.
The council did not take any firm action during the recent review, and Clapper said specific CIP items will continue to be hashed over as different components of the 2015 budget are reviewed in the months ahead.
