2023-2028 Capital Program

The City adopts a six-year capital improvement program (CIP) that is updated annually. Each year, City departments and independent boards and commissions prepare new and/or modify existing capital budget requests (CBRs). The CBRs are then reviewed by the Capital Long-Range Improvement Committee (CLIC), which is a citizen advisory committee to the Mayor and City Council. The CLIC process is facilitated by Finance and Property Services staff.

CLIC is comprised of 33 appointed members, including two members per Council Ward and seven at-large members appointed by the Mayor. The overall committee elects a Chair and Vice Chair. The committee functions with two programmatic task forces of approximately the same number of members. Each task force, “Transportation” and “Human Development”, elects a Chair and Vice Chair. Collectively, these six elected members form the Executive Committee and represent CLIC in meetings with the Mayor and City Council. The task force members receive and review all CBRs for their program areas as submitted by the various City departments and submitting agencies.

Departments and submitting agencies formally present their requests to CLIC members and answer questions. Task force members then rate all proposals using a rating system with specific criteria and create a numerical ranking for each project. Highest-ranking projects are then balanced against proposed available resources by year to arrive at a six-year capital improvement program recommendation to the Mayor and City Council.

CLIC recommendations are presented in the CLIC Report and this serves as the starting point from which the Mayor and City Council’s decisions are made. The Mayor makes recommendations on the capital budget as well as the operating budget. The Council adopts the six-year capital plan simultaneously with the operating budget, although appropriation is only adopted for the first year.

For the six-year plan covering years 2023-2028, there were 132 CBRs reviewed of which 126 were rated by CLIC members. The total requested capital budget for the six years was $1.331 billion and the Council adopted funding of 115 CBRs for a total of $1.17 billion.

Six-Year Capital Program Totals: For 2023-2028, the six-year capital program for City departments, independent boards and commissions totals $1.14 billion including all funding sources. The 2023 portion of this program is $204.30 million. This budget demonstrates significant commitments to improving the City and Park Board’s infrastructure.

The table below provides a high level summary of the Council Adopted six-year capital program. Funding for individual projects can be found in the Capital Budget Summary report.

The new expanded 20-year funding (over base) for streets and neighborhood parks is included in this budget. The total dollar increases for the six-year plan have been broken out into several existing and new paving projects for street infrastructure along with additional special assessments and municipal state aid adjustments as determined by the Public Works Department. For the Park Board, funds of $9 million per year were added to various neighborhood park projects, with prospective interest increases that must be affirmed prior to enactment.

Neighborhood Parks NDB and Park Capital Levy funding: The 2023-2028 capital budget includes an average of $2.5 million of base NDB per year, and $9 million of new Neighborhood Parks NDB funding. The 2023 budget includes $11.9 million of net debt bonds, and $2.18 million of park capital levy.

The total resources added by funding source (excluding special assessments and municipal state aid) are summarized in the table below:

The 2023-2028 capital budget includes funding for sanitary and storm sewers and water infrastructure improvements which are supported by utility rates. Long-term financial plans are used to determine utility fees required to support operations and infrastructure costs. Utility Fees can be found in the Financial Schedules section of this book.

As part of each capital budget request, submitting agencies identify whether the capital request will result in an increase or decrease in annual operating costs. Departments are instructed to manage operating cost increases or decreases within existing operating budget funding levels.

Minneapolis' total outstanding general obligation debt is decreased from $748 million as of December 31, 2019 to $743 million for the year ending December 31, 2020. These totals include debt that the City issues on behalf of its discrete component units, the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board and the Municipal Building Commission, and debt the City has previously issued on behalf of the Minneapolis Library Board. Within the scope of its debt policy, the City continuously explores for advantageous terms and debt instruments to finance its long-term capital improvements.

Management of the City's debt involves consideration of not only the absolute amount of debt, but also of yearly trends in the relationship of the debt to other financial measures. The accompanying chart shows a ten-year history of the total City debt level for years 2011-2021. The total includes general obligation debt, backed by the full faith and credit of the City, and non-general obligation debt, which includes tax increment backed revenue bonds and notes.

The City monitors its debt levels continuously against its legal maximums as determined by its statutory debt limit, which restricts the City's "net debt" (gross debt less certain current revenues and excluding certain obligations) from exceeding 3-1/3% of the market value of its taxable property. This ratio has remained below 3% since 2007 and resources requested under the 2023-2028 CIP are not projected to exceed this level.

The City also evaluates the impact of its debt levels in consideration of its overall demands on the property tax levy, as described in the Financial Plans. Within the Financial Plans, the Ten-Year Projection of Demands on the Property Tax addresses the assumed operational cost increases for the General Fund.

The latest information on the City's debt capacity can be found in its latest available bond offering document published on the City's finance website,