We are still reviewing the County’s ten year Capital Improvement Plan (CIP). Thus far we can say it is well organized and reasonably complete. It shows itemized capital expenses by project in a way that allows us to understand past and future expenditures on multi-year projects. Detail sheets provide descriptions, justifications, projected expenses and future revenues by project. Summary sheets are provided for each department and for the overall CIP.

Some Departments also provide “level of service” projections that relate current levels of service to standards adopted in our Comprehensive Plan. These charts are very important because they indicate how well the planned projects and capital outlays will keep up with population growth and increasing demand for public services.

For example, the Parks Department predicts “levels of service” for the next 10 years for Beach Facilities, Conservation Lands, and Community Parks if no new facilities are obtained. These three categories all have specific relationships to population in the Comprehensive Plan. Two of three categories fall below standards unless additional investments are made.

Unfortunately, the format used in the CIP does not compare proposed future improvements with Comprehensive Plan requirements in a way the reader can understand. The “level of service” table indicating we will go from adequate beach parking today to inadequate beach parking in 2008 and beyond suggests we will not comply with our own Comprehensive Plan. However, the detail sheets for beach parks imply some additional parking will be added, but without enough detail to determine whether we will or will not have enough to meet future needs.

Conservation Land shows no land proposed for purchase during the next 10 years, and the actual level of service declining from a surplus to a “deficit” over the next 10 years while conservation land holds steady at 3200 acres. However, the public has contributed $27M in one-cent sales tax funds matched by more than $100M from the State to buy nearly 30,000 acres of conservation land in Martin County over the past 5 years. None of this land is considered in “level of service”.

Most of Martin County’s conservation land is not accessible to the public, and there is apparently no plan to make it so. Since public access to conservation land is not a factor in level of service, we believe this table should show all conservation lands in the County, not just those owned solely by Martin County.

The third category, Community Parks, is where the bulk of the $43M is going. However, even if no improvements were to be made, this category shows a consistent surplus of facilities in every district in Martin County over the next 10 years. Thus it does not justify expenditures of this magnitude.

Looking into the details on specific parks, we find $12.2M budgeted for one park, Indian Riverside, on top of $12.1M already spent in years past. The total cost of this one park will be $24.3M, by far the most expensive park in the County. When we checked with the Parks Department, we found because this park has no community park facilities, it is not counted toward meeting level of service in the Comp Plan.

The next most expensive is Halpatiokee Regional Park, 10 times as large as Indian Riverside and projected to cost a total of $16.9M when completed. The acreage in this park is listed as meeting level of service requirements for Community Parks in every district in the County.

At least with respect to parks and recreation, the 10 year CIP is both well presented and seriously flawed. We cannot tell whether the CIP complies with required Comprehensive Plan levels of service. We cannot determine what priorities lead to spending over 25% of the entire 10 year Parks budget on one park of limited size and occupancy, that offers only passive recreation, and does not meet any level of service need.

For parks and recreation, the CIP generates major questions both in setting priorities for park improvements and in accurately accounting for growth and impacts fee needs. The public deserves a more understandable presentation of the relationships between growth, capital projects, cost, impacts fees and priorities.

Again, we applaud the progress made in organization and presentation of information in the CIP. This is the best effort ever by Martin County to organize and present capital projects. However, there is a lot of potential here yet to be used by Commissioners to the benefit of taxpayers.

Perhaps the issues of compliance with our Comp Plan, and priority expenses, not just for parks but for all capital expenses, will be addressed during the Board of Commissioners review of the Fiscal Policy in March. The Fiscal Policy should provide guidelines to improve both the CIP and the Operations budget documents.