(UPDATED, JUNE 10, 2021 AT 8:30 AM)

At the Council’s June 15, 2021, meeting, I will propose four amendments to the Capital Improvements Budget, or CIB. That’s different than the operating budget, which gets the most attention. The CIB is often called the “wish list” for large capital improvement projects.

Let’s cover a few basics first. The Metro Charter requires the Council to pass a CIB every year by June 15. It has to be passed before the operating budget is passed. With one important exception I’ll talk about, getting a capital project into the CIB does not mean that it will actually get built. But in order to be eligible for final spending approval later, a project has to first be listed in the CIB. The CIB can be amended mid-year with 27 votes of the Council.

The Mayor’s proposed FY22 CIB is a 397 page list of everything you might imagine a growing city needs from sidewalks to sewer plants to schools to parks to transit hubs to, well, everything. I typically don’t have much to say about the CIB because I’m all for the city having a robust list of specific projects that are eligible to be considered for final spending decisions. When I object to a CIB item, it is always about whether the item is somehow limiting the Council’s power to decide on approving specific projects, or if a project is too generic-sounding to know what we are approving.

That brings us to the exception I mentioned above. There are technicalities involved, but revenue bond (not general obligation bond) projects through the Metro Water Services do not need further Council approval once they are listed in a CIB. This came up repeatedly last term when former Mayors included a $100+ million downtown flood wall as a proposed project in the CIB to be paid for with Water & Sewer revenue bonds. In my first year in office (2016), then Councilmember Cooper and I figured out this nuance just days before approving the CIB and we led an effort to delete that item from the CIB. If it had passed as proposed, work on the $100+ million project would have started immediately. That would have been premature because there definitely was not buy-in from the Council or the broader community for the project. Allowing that item in the CIB would have removed the Council from the mix on that project for good.

This year, there are four projects in the proposed CIB that are triggering my sense that the Council would be ceding too much decision-making ability. For one, I have an agreement with the administration about how to amend the item. For the second, I think I have an agreement about how to amend it. For the third and fourth, we’re still talking. The four are:

21WS0020 ($16.2 million in FY22 from proposed Water & Sewer revenue bonds): As proposed, this would be for “Participation Projects with developers for utility capacity, specialized technology, utility relocations, department staff efforts to support all engineering activities.”

My amendment will change this language to specify that any spending under a participation agreement would first require Council approval of the participation agreement. The administration is okay with this amendment.

21WS0021 ($43.3 million in FY22 from proposed Water & Sewer revenue bonds): As proposed, this would be for “Leak detection, Castleman WM replacement, Brick Church Pike WM improvements, 12th Ave WM replacements Phase 2, East Nashville WM replacement - multiple phases, and other water main replacement projects as identified.”

My issue is with the last part of this: “other water main replacement projects as identified.” I’ve learned over the years that general, generic sounding CIB language can be used years later as a catchall to allow spending on projects that have not been approved by the Council. As proposed, this item would in theory support spending all $43 million on “other” projects “as identified.”

In response, the administration tells me that all but $5M of this item will be spent on the specifically identified projects. That’s good to hear. To document that, I will present an amendment saying that further Council approval is necessary to spend more than $5M on the “other” portion of this item. That will allow $5M of flexibility while preserving the Council’s right to know what capital projects are being approved for spending. I think the administration will be okay with this amendment, but we haven’t pinned that down for sure yet.

UPDATE, JUNE 10, 2021 AT 8:30 AM: I have an agreement with the administration to support this amendment.

22FI0004 ($50 million in FY22 proposed revenue bonds): As proposed, this would be for “Omnibus Project for the Revenue-Backed Improvements of Revenue-Producing Facilities for the Metro Nashville Government.”

I fundamentally don’t know what this is for. It is either a very hypothetical placeholder with no details, or there is some large deal cooking that this is meant to reference. If it is a hypothetical placeholder with no details, I think it should be deleted. While the CIB is considered a “wish list,” it lists out specific wishes and not generalized hopes for the future. If this is meant instead to refer to some large deal that is cooking, then this very general entry under the Finance Department should be deleted and replaced with a proposed entry for whatever facility we are talking about here.

I’ve had some conversation with the administration about this one. I would characterize their response as suggesting this is a hypothetical placeholder just in case a revenue opportunity comes our way. To me, with no details and hypothetical potential deals only, this isn’t ready for the CIB and I’ll offer an amendment to delete this item.

12FI0002 ($50 million — $25 million in FY22 proposed general obligation bonds and $25 million in “miscellaneous funds”): As proposed, this would be for “Omnibus Project for Capital Capital Allocations for Economic Development Projects in Nashville/Davidson County -- Capital Renovations, Improvements, Relocations, Leases and/or Expansions.”

This is another one where there’s no way to tell what it is. In several previous years, this item was listed as being $15 million from general obligations bonds. Because general obligation bonds require further Council approval prior to any spending and because it was a relatively small amount compared to a lot of projects, I haven’t objected in previous years. But now that this item is more than tripling in size and includes the use of $25 million in unidentified “miscellaneous funds”, we need to regroup on this one. I think it should be deleted. If the administration wants to replace it with more specific entries that identify whatever potential uses led to this proposed CIB item more than tripling year-over-year, we can look at that.

UPDATE, JUNE 10, 2021 AT 8:30 AM: I have an agreement with the administration. Rather than deleting this CIB item, my amendment will be to reduce the miscellaneous funds to $0 and to reduce the general objection bonds from $25 million to $15 million. Any spending from the CIB item would require further Council approval.

My amendments will be discussed at the Budget & Finance Committee meeting on June 14 at 4:00 p.m. and then again at the Council meeting on June 15.