By Rebekah Morris for AZBEX
The City of Phoenix’s Five-year Capital Improvement Plan has hit a new high-water mark for funding with $9.778B in overall planned expenditures and funding. A wide range of projects across departments and focus areas, including:
- Aviation,
- Information Technology,
- Public Transit,
- Street Transportation & Drainage,
- Water and
- Wastewater are planned.
State’s Biggest Program Gets Bigger
Before 2018, the Arizona Department of Transportation had been the single largest public agency in the state for capital programs and expenditures. Since then, however, Phoenix has absolutely dominated the space, growing from a variety of new funding sources, significant tax revenue growth, as well as federal funds – such as the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act. This most recent CIP shows an astounding 18.54% YoY increase in the total program.
Before the last recession, the largest the five-year program ever was approximately $7B in 2006. Much like the rest of the economy, public agency budgets were hit hard and saw decreases in their capital programs due to reduced tax revenue and depressed economic conditions. Phoenix’s CIP hovered in the $3B range between 2012 and 2016. Only in 2017 did the program start to see sizable increases. At that time the increases could be tied directly to Prop 104. Voter approval of that sales tax measure in 2015 specifically funded transportation and transit projects.
Enterprise Funds See Increases
Many of the largest departments in the CIP are related to Enterprise Funds. These are departments that have their own dedicated revenue streams, such as Public Transit, Water Services, and Aviation. These departments traditionally have access to rate increases and similar measures that enable them to raise revenue for capital projects.
Notable New Projects Added
Some notable projects that appear to be new with this year’s CIP include:
- $18.5M Workforce Training Center (in partnership with Arizona State University, the Maricopa County Community College District and West-MEC),
- $35M Sky Harbor American Airlines Cargo Site Relocation,
- $15M Data Center Modernization, and
- $159M Design & Construction of 100 W Washington Street Building & Parking Garage.
Other projects reflect initiatives important to City Council, such as investment in affordable housing through grants and loans, cool pavement projects and water resiliency projects.
GO Bond Planned Will Further Enhance the Capital Program
A citywide General Obligation bond is currently planned for November 2023. The City aims to keep property taxes at their current level while securing $500M in financing for capital projects.
As of fall 2022, individual departments are finalizing their prioritized list of projects, knowing that the need far exceeds available funding. The City’s Executive Bond Committee is tasked with paring down prioritized lists from departments to meet the overall stated goal of $500M. If the City executes this bond program well, the intent is to ask voters to continue approving a similar question on a regular basis to maintain the pace of continuing to deliver capital projects that benefit residents.
Phoenix Just One of Dozens
While Phoenix is the largest CIP in the state, it is just one of dozens that are reviewed and analyzed in the BEX annual CIP Special Report.
Individual jurisdictions all handle their CIP development and reporting differently, and the documentation is primarily intended for an internal audience. This makes trying to figure out what one city or department is shooting for difficult to determine and even harder to compare against one another.
For more than 10 years now, BEX Research staff has compiled, formatted and assembled these disparate documents and plans into a cohesive report to show – at a glance – who is doing what and when.
The release of the CIP Special Report is also timed to coincide with our annual Public Works Conference, and this year is no different. The PWC brings together industry professionals from across the state for a half-day program featuring public officials, A/E/C leaders and independent experts to showcase the latest trends, successes, challenges and opportunities for public projects in the year to come.
Advance tickets are on sale now for the 2022 PWC taking place on Oct. 18. As usual, we have also scheduled the CIP Report for release the same day. A tentative program and speakers list are available here, as is a variety of purchase options for the conference, the CIP Report, or both.