LINKS TO STATE RCWs & WACs:
RCWs
(State laws)
-
Mandatory Elements of a Comp plan (See item #3 in this statute for CFPs)
WACs:
CAPITAL
FACILITIES PLAN
(As mandated by the Growth Management Act, the "GMA")
FINAL DRAFT OF SULTAN'S CFP (Issued as a "final," yet no "draft" was ever issued.
Sultan's 6-Year Road Capital Improvement Plan, 2002/2005
OTHER ITEMS OF INTEREST RELATED TO SULTAN'S 2004 CFP:
- What IS a Capital Facilities Plan?
- When did Sultan last perform a Capital Facilities Plan?
- The City of Sultan comprehensive plans (See also: Sewer, water, transportation, also visit Jeff Everett's Council webpage, www.sultancitycouncil.com)
- DRAFT Worksheet of a possible Sultan CFP, in Acrobat only (distributed during 8/25/04 Council Meeting by R. Cisar)
- Notice of DNS on "Final" CFP (Determination of Non-significance) for Sultan's CFP dated Oct. 29, 2004
- Copying by Example: Other Cities' CFPs - DUVALL (Mr. Cisar distributed Duvall's 2004 Draft plan during the 8/25/04 Sultan Council Meeting, as a possible example of what Sultan's might look like.), CITY OF SNOHOMISH
- Audio & Transcription of comments re Sultan's CFP
What IS a Capital Facilities Plan? (This plan is also referred to as "CFP" and/or "CIP" which stands for "Capital Improvement Plan")
Put simply, a Capital Facilities Plan is a city's plan of how it will plan and pay for future infrastructure. Infrastructure means taxpayer-supported and -owned facilities required for growth, such as its schools, roads, sewer, water plants, police, libraries, parks and recreation and other public buildings and facilities. It is a state-mandated element of the Growth Management Act (GMA - link to RCWs here). In many ways, it's one of the most important pieces of the GMA. That is, if a City plans for more growth than its current infrastructure can handle, then expanded or new facilities must be built to handle the additional strain placed on them when new businesses start up and new population adds to the drain on services. If the city has no funds available for such expansion, then it has the following choices:
- Place a temporary moratorium on such growth until the funding and/or new services can be accomplished; and
- Establish a plan which assigns priorities for future projects, allocating the specific types and methods of financial sources through which the funding for the required infrastructure can be achieved.
This should be done on an annual basis, in concert with the City's budget process, and revised whenever a comprehensive plan update occurs.
The City of Sultan has not operated under any valid Capital Facilities Plan, due to conflicts/errors in its land use mapping which occurred during its initial 1994/1995 comprehensive plan process, as well as subsequent annexations. It has also failed to perform the appropriate analyses for future capital infrastructure needs (i.e., sewer, water, roadway, police, parks, et al.), more importantly, how the City will pay for improvements needed as growth occurs.
In Layman's Language: Failing to properly plan for future expenses for a necessity can be compared to parents having more children than they can financially afford to feed and clothe. If the debt becomes great enough, then other taxpayers -- in the form of welfare or subsistence payments from the government -- will have to step in and assist with expenses to survive. This is what has happened to the City of Sultan; it has depended upon grants for basic necessities. Another example of poor financial planning is when parents raise a child with the expectation that he or she will go onto college after graduating from high school, but they only begin saving for that event during the child's senior year.
AUDIO CLIPS (& transcriptions):
Rick Cisar's statement re park funding and the City's supposed CFP for parks
Rick Cisar's statement re draft CFP worksheet in MP3 (given at 8/25/04 council mtg.)