Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) - City of Delaware

A capital expenditure differs from operating budget expenditures. Operating expenditures
include personnel expenses, materials and supplies, and small equipment that involve day
to day operations of the City.
Examples of capital improvements include:
- Acquisition of land;
- Construction or expansion of public facilities, streets, or utility lines;
- Non-recurring rehabilitation of a facility;
- Design work or planning study related to an individual project;
- An item that typically has a useful life of 5 or more years; and
- Replacement and purchase of vehicles
Financial Policies and Guidelines
The city adopted several financial policies and guidelines that serve as a foundation for
capital improvement planning. These policies cover all capital categories in the CIP. The
financial policies related to CIP planning include the following:
The budget will provide for adequate maintenance and repair of capital assets for
their orderly replacement;
The city will develop a five-year capital improvements program on an annual
basis;
The city will enact an annual capital improvement budget based on the multi-year
capital improvements program;
The city will coordinate development of the capital improvement budget with
development of the operating budget;
The city will confine long-term borrowing to capital improvement projects;
When the city finances capital projects by issuing debt, it will repay the debt
within a period not to exceed the expected useful life of the project;
The city will evaluate issuing debt and pay-as-you-go financing to maintain
flexibility for the future;
The city will continually seek to maintain and improve its current bond rating to
minimize borrowing costs and to ensure that access to credit is preserved.
Capital Improvement Planning Process
The City of Delaware’s process of preparing the annual CIP involves the following
departments: Finance, Engineering, Public Works, Public Utilities, Police, Fire, Parks and
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