Wilmette Deliberates Four-Year Capital Improvement Plan

As municipalities age they require lots of infrastructure upkeep to maintain everyday functions we often take for granted.

For the , it's a familiar story, one they are figuring out how to finance over the next four years. Tuesday evening, The Village's Fincance and Municipal Service Committees hosted a public forum to reveal its capital improvement program for 2012 through 2016.

A handful of village departments, including police, fire, public works and engineering, have submitted 47 recommended and critical improvement projects for the village to consider, such as a new ambulance, road and watermain projects and an exterior paint job to village hall. Officials from each department, spoke at the forum in detail about the condition of projects they listed.

“It's simply a tool used to approximate a time line [for necessary improvements],” said Village Manager Timothy J. Frenzer, of the program. “None of this will come up for a vote until the budget is adopted in the month of November.”

Earlier: Read about Wilmette's Village Center Master Plan.

“These are not recurring operating expenses,” said Frenzer, who later presented the board with a narrowed-down list of six improvements that could begin to see funding as early as next year. “They are large investments in pieces of our infrastructure.”

Along with $1.5 million needed for street repairs, board members considered six additional capital improvements, all marked critical on the report:

• One ambulance, totalling $185,000

• Four police squad cars, totalling $128,000

In order to maintain a balanced budget, and in order to keep its tax levy below 3.94 percent in FY2011-12, according to the report, Wilmette can only spend up to $300,000 on the six improvements listed above next year.

Moreover, Frenzer noted, the levy will increase by .67 percent for every additional $1 million the board spends on capital improvements.

“We're letting the board know what's out there,” Frenzer explained. “With the economy in the shape that it's in, we're going to have to forgo [certain improvement plans] ... until we start seeing better revenue increases.”

Village Trustee Cameron Krueger argued that the village should hold off on certain improvements, such as buying a new squad car or defibrillators, or striping streets with driving markers required under state law, to bring down the tax levy.

“Some things can be delayed, and some things can't,” Krueger said. “What's the [long-term] cost of doing no street striping for a year? Probably pretty low. What's the cost of delaying the purchase of a new police car? [It's] easily quantifiable.”

Frenzer replied that the village is living on “borrowed time” when it delays any critical improvements.

“Is that responsible?” he asked.

Stay tuned to Patch for more on Tuesday's Capital Improvement Plan meeting.