The Five-year Capital Plan details the long-range capital needs of Racine
County. The document is the result of an extended effort to determine the
capital requirements of Racine County for the next five years, 2002 - 2006. Over
a period of several months, forms have been sent by the County Executive to
department heads requesting that they review their five-year objectives and
present a completed capital form to the Finance Department. These requests were
analyzed and are now presented to the County Board in the attached document.
The plan identifies future capital costs and revenues. County funds are either
transfers from reserves or borrowing. The County for many years has funded
capital items primarily from reserves and surpluses. Significant borrowing will
be necessary in order to implement this plan.
The plan presents a summary page followed by a detailed listing for each major
category. Capital items and projects were loosely defined by the County
Executive in her instructions to department heads in order to insure that no
items were missed in the preparation of this document. While no minimum dollar
limit was set to determine what was included in the capital plan, items under
$20,000 were combined into a line labeled "ITEMS UNDER $20,000 COMBINED" on most
of the detailed listings. The consensus was that some items in aggregate would
amount to large dollar amounts, but individually these items would not, by
generally acceptable definitions of capital, be included in this plan. This is
most evident in the Technology Equipment category.
A Five-year Capital Plan has been prepared for the past three years for internal
purposes by the Finance Department and was developed from information supplied
by department heads. While the plan presented includes these previous years, it
must be remembered that these internal plans were prepared before the County
adopted the final budget for each year. Therefore, an item by item correlation
between the final adopted budget and these previous capital plans would not be
possible for all items. This document is intended to inform the County Board and
taxpayers of future requirements for capital expenditures. The use of estimates
for some items was necessary since the feasibility or practicality of
determining exact costs for certain projects would be prohibitive. As with all
longer-range plans, situations can and will change, requiring that the plan be
modified as time passes.
The summary page shows that the total five-year expenditures for the plan, net
of revenues, are $70,061,309 This is for the years 2002 through 2006. History
for the past two years of the county's capital expenditures is also included on
the summary page. The past two years of net expenditures has averaged $1.6
million. A major factor increasing the capital requests is the inclusion of a
major jail project for $30 million starting in the year 2002.
The five-year plan contains detail sheets for major projects after the summary
schedules. The definition of a major project is $500,000 for a construction
project and $250,000 for equipment projects. These sheets are included to
provide more information about these projects.
Sheriff's Department Projects
As stated previously, the major project shown in this plan is a
$30 million jail addition. A special County Board committee is currently
studying this item and will issue recommendations. Rapidly changing
communications technology and Dispatch consolidation requires the County to
replace outdated systems in the future. In a separate item, the jail requires a
$6 million project, which includes remodeling the jail intake area, enlarging
the jail medical area, and upgrading the inmate monitoring cameras on the "B"
and "C" wings.
Road and Bridge Projects
The County is responsible for 335 lane-miles of County trunk highways, 16
County bridges and numerous smaller drainage structures. The Highway division,
in order to capture transportation aids, has always maintained and yearly
updated a five-year capital plan. The division has a number of projects ready to
begin construction as funding becomes available. This strategy strives to
maximize state and federal aids by having an inventory of project plans ready
when funds are being allocated by the DOT. This source of revenue for future
periods must be estimated and is subject to state and federal controls. These
DOT funds are project-specific and may or may not be the projects of the highest
priority as determined by our Highway staff. County funds not used as match
funding for state and federal projects are available to fund projects not
eligible for state or federal funding. In the past, much of the funding has come
from the use of Highway reserves. The amount of surpluses available each year
varies.
