Determine what capital facilities your jurisdiction owns now

The first step is to determine what facilities you have now, what condition they’re in and whether they have sufficient capacity to address your long-term (20 year) community needs.

Note:  The process that follows should be iterative.  That is to say, as you proceed through this planning cycle and subsequent ones, you can build on your inventory tracking using this same form.  It should be updated whenever you obtain a new facility or item of capital equipment.  That way, you never have to go back and do this again once it’s been started; the process will just be easier each time.

The Capital Facilities Inventory template  can help you organize this information in an easy to use format.

a.  Start with your jurisdiction’s insurance policy.  If your jurisdiction has a policy defining “capital”, match the list against that definition.   For each “capital” item, your jurisdiction’s insurance policy will include the following information:

• Facility Name
• Date Acquired
• Purchase /Acquisition Price or Current Price
• Current Value or Replacement Value

Use that information to begin your capital facilities inventory. 

Note that a capital facility can be major equipment as well as a structure such as a building, street, park or bridge.  Be sure to include vehicles, heavy equipment, and the like on this list.

Here is an illustration:

b.  Next, ask your public works, facilities maintenance, fire and police staff what other facilities they know about.
Add these to the list in the same manner.  You will be surprised!  There will be facilities that should be insured and aren’t.  There will also be some facilities you’re insuring that no longer exist.  At least, that has been the experience of most jurisdictions starting out in this planning process for the first time.

It is not important that every detail be added immediately for every capital facility.  What is most important is to start developing the building blocks of your plan.  Over a period of time, you can fill in the blanks.

c. Then, determine the condition and capacity of each capital facility

Use your jurisdiction’s plans to determine the current condition and capacity of each capital facility.  Your goal at this point is simply to record what you know about the facility. 

Example:  Here is an illustration:

• Your city has a park with a baseball diamond, picnic shelter and restroom.  Your parks plan indicates that you need additional sports fields, a replacement picnic shelter and restroom improvements.  Your inventory would look like this:

Note:  if needed, column headings may be edited to include information unique to your municipality.  You can also add or delete row headings to conform to your needs.

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