A Capital Investment Program for LA
THE PROBLEM: Fragmented Plans Without an Implementation Strategy
Los Angeles is unique among its peers since it is the only one without a Capital Improvement Plan. The City of LA's current plan is a compendium of capital projects across an array of departments, without any discussion or tracking of the state of repair of the assets it owns. This capital projects list allows policymakers to make investments year over year, but little else.
Not being able to see past a year or two limits forecasting and capacity planning for city staff in support of capital projects and maintenance, for fiscal considerations, and for amortization of assets, leaving the City vulnerable to facility failure that takes buildings and infrastructure out of service. Declining state of good repair also increases the risk of costly liability claims against the City from infrastructure that begins to fail, causing injury and even death. As the City's built form continues to age, it is more critical than ever for LA to proactively plan for its future.
THE SOLUTION: Executive Directive 9
Mayor Bass released Executive Directive 9 to address these challenges and others related to the City of LA's streets, public space, infrastructure, facilities, and buildings. This multi-year initiative is designed to endure well beyond the Bass administration and has 5 main goals:
Reform Governance: Clarify and improve how City departments work with one another, build greater accountability, and deliver better services and facilities and public spaces in Los Angeles;
Identify New Funding: Thoughtfully propose increasing funding or raising new revenue to maintain or replace infrastructure assets and property that the City of LA owns and maintains;
Streamline Delivery: Taking existing departmental resources —working groups, committees, staffing, and software systems— reorganize around efficiency, reduce workload, improve outcomes, and strengthen accountability to the public;
Track and Manage Assets: Assess what we own as a City, its location, condition, expected lifespan, and put that into a central asset management system. Develop levels of service or acceptable states of repair for these assets and refine maintenance planning and capital plans for our streets, parks, buildings, landmarks, and infrastructure.
Implement a Capital Investment Program: Taking the aforementioned goals, build a central, citywide strategy that documents the City's current state of repair for assets it owns, proposes new maintenance and capital funding, including staffing and projects, and clearly articulates what fiscal capacity we have to deliver on these proposals and where strategic investments should be made where we lack capacity.
