County revises capital improvement planning policy

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors approved an update to Board of Supervisors Policy G-16, which covers capital facilities and space planning.

The most significant updates approved by the supervisors’ 5-0 vote June 21 involve a facilities planning board to recommend priorities for capital improvements, along with criteria to be considered during the setting of priorities.

“What staff is doing with this policy is integrating our general management system,” said Supervisor Greg Cox. “This is a kind of an integration.”

The county’s General Management System, which is the basic blueprint to guide the county’s operations, was implemented in 1998. The revisions to Policy G-16 call for the county’s Department of General Services to coordinate annual implementation of the policy with a “call for projects” in August in which departments submit high-priority projects, including estimated costs and level of available funding, for review and evaluation. The facilities planning board will review the projects and recommend priorities for inclusion in the Capital Improvements Needs Assessment, which will be presented to the county’s Chief Administrative Officer for preliminary review and submittal to the Board of Supervisors for acceptance.

The supervisors are not bound by the facilities planning board priority recommendations. “The board [of supervisors] can make any priority it wants to,” said Chief Administrative Officer Walt Ekard.

The update of the criteria for prioritization led to some debate by the Board of Supervisors. The criteria listed in the policy prior to the debate were linkage to the county’s strategic plan, critical need (emergency or safety services), federal or state mandates or other legally-binding commitments, operating budget impacts (quantifiable reduced operating costs), maintenance budget impacts (quantifiable reduced maintenance costs) and customer service benefits. The policy states that capital projects shall be prioritized using criteria including but not limited to those specifically listed.

Supervisor Ron Roberts sought to add the criteria of quality of life. “Libraries and parks would do very badly on this,” Roberts said. “Anything not in that strategic plan, you couldn’t even qualify.”

The supervisors will have the final decision on prioritizing capital projects, but Roberts noted that libraries and parks would receive no priority points in the critical need, mandate, operations savings and maintenance savings categories. “It will give us a better chance, I think, to reflect the real values of what we feel,” he said.

John McTighe, the director of the county’s Department of General Services, notes that the county’s strategic plan includes enhancing quality of life but that quality of life wasn’t delineated as a separate item.

Ekard remarked that all projects provide an increased quality of life. “That’s what we do,” he said.

McTighe told the supervisors he couldn’t think of any past or pending projects which would receive a zero score on quality of life.

“It’s a matter of degree,” Ekard said.

Cox noted that while “quality of life” is subjective, “customer service benefits” is also not a quantitatively definable term. “I think including it in the criteria is appropriate,” he said.

“It doesn’t mean there can’t be other things considered,” said Supervisor Dianne Jacob.

The supervisors will make their own recommendations for funding projects, but the policy will serve as a guideline. “It’s not strictly the criteria. The criteria is a planning tool in the early stages,” McTighe said.