Public stewardship: building a long-term funding policy for infrastructure maintenance.

• Author: Miller, Marilyn

The City of Denver's Public Stewardship for a City Beautiful initiative was one of the Government Finance Association's 2008 Awards for Excellence winners.

Throughout the United States, critical public infrastructure is in desperate need of repair and replacement after years of neglect and deferred maintenance. Much of the current built environment, above and below ground, was designed and completed more than 50 years ago, during the post-war boom. But the public does not tend to understand the extent of the deterioration, and there is no obvious champion for the repair and replacement of infrastructure until a major disaster strikes.

Citizens tend to take notice of the infrastructure issues they deal with daily--potholes in their streets, or the condition of their playgrounds. They are much less likely to be aware that the jurisdiction's 50-year-old fire station needs to be rehabilitated, or that maintenance facilities are unsafe, wastewater treatment facilities are inadequate, bridges are deteriorating, or animal shelters are out of date. There are always constituencies for new parks, new or bigger recreation centers, more landscaped medians, or expanded museums. When the prospect of another bond election appears on the horizon, interested parties line up with proposals for new and expanded facilities.

But where is the constituency that advocates for government to maintain what it already has? In the City and County of Denver, Colorado, middle managers became critical advocates for infrastructure maintenance and repair. They saw the condition of the trash transfer station and its impact on efficiency Building engineers understood that buildings were deteriorating and sometimes unsafe. They understood that failing to adequately maintain streets would result in higher replacement costs in the future.

Recognizing that the existing capital planning and budgeting process was not adequately maintaining the city's infrastructure, the director of capital budgeting and the finance director proposed that the mayor address the situation. Denver established two task forces to develop policies that would ensure proper capital maintenance in the future. The first group assessed the condition of the current infrastructure, developed maintenance standards, and established criteria for setting priorities. The second group developed a capital funding policy to provide a long-term framework based on the results of the first group. Armed with compelling information and sensible proposals, the mayor worked to get buy-in from the City Council and the public. As a result of this "Stewardship for a City Beautiful" initiative, Denver succeeded in getting voter approval to increase property taxes for capital maintenance and a major capital maintenance bond issue.

TELLING THE STORY

Denver's capital maintenance program had fallen behind for a number of reasons. One of the most important was that infrastructure had grown as the city had expanded, and the funding committed to capital maintenance did not keep pace with the increased assets. The city also had many assets from a post-war boom in the 1950s that had reached or exceeded their useful life of approximately 50...