Using technology to enhance capital planning and budgeting: Austin's eCAPRIS project reporting and information system.

• Author: Canally, Greg

Physical infrastructure and facilities are the backbone of government operations. Failure to invest in needed capital assets or maintain existing assets will impair a government's ability to provide the services constituents demand and can undermine quality of life and economic growth. As such, managing public infrastructure and facilities is one of the most important and challenging activities local governments engage in. To do so effectively requires the right systems and tools. This article describes how the City of Austin enhanced its capital planning and management capabilities through the use of technology.

CAPITAL PLANNING IN AUSTIN

Austin is the state capital of Texas. With more than 640,000 residents, it is the fourth-largest city in the state and the 16th-largest city in the U.S. Austin's vision is "To be the most livable city in the country." In addition to providing general government services--public safety, recreation and culture, health services, etc.--the city also owns and operates an electric utility, a water utility, a drainage utility, a convention center, solid waste service, and an international airport.

The budget office manages the city's capital improvement program, which involves all departments that undertake capital projects as part of their mission and operations. Austin spends approximately $550 million per year on capital projects. The program is funded by a combination of bonds, cash, and grants.

Each spring, in accordance with the city charter, the budget office, working with each of the departments, prepares a five-year capital improvement program plan for review by the Planning Commission. This plan details spending, appropriation, and funding needs for every planned or ongoing project, as well as project descriptions and locations. The first year of the CIP becomes the draft for the proposed capital budget, which is presented to the City Council in June of each year. The City Council adopts the annual capital budget, along with the operating budget, in September. The city prepares a quarterly status report on benchmarked capital projects that includes schedules, spending, and status.

A CITYWIDE CIP SYSTEM

In 1997, Austin began its largest-ever annexation, encompassing an area of 15,000 acres and 30,000 people. The city's water/wastewater utility--Austin Water Utility--faced the challenge of inventorying and, where necessary, repairing and upgrading infrastructure, per each annexation area's service plan. It quickly became clear that the utility's existing processes for financial management and project management for capital improvement projects needed to be integrated to ensure that the annexation work was completed on time and on budget. To meet this challenge, Austin Water Utility created the City of Austin Project Reporting System (CAPRIS). This system was an immediate success in the utility's finance and project management divisions, and served as the basis for a Web-based lntranet system (eCAPRIS) that was adopted citywide in 2000.

Before eCAPRIS, each city department had its own internal system for project management and for financial tracking of each of the projects. The budget office used a Microsoft Access database to compile each department's capital requests into the citywide CIP. The departments submitted marked-up pages from the previous year's CIP, along with new capital requests, which were then...