Commissioners consider five-year spending plan for county

Capital Improvement Plan details long list of funding requests

Gunnison County departments got to make their bids for funds to the Board of County Commissioners at the regular meeting Tuesday, July 1, for projects like the new airport terminal at the Gunnison-Crested Butte Regional Airport, construction of a new jail and replacement of the Slate River Bridge on Highway 135.

The five-year capital improvement plan provides the commissioners with a roadmap to the capital project needs of each county department, such as new buildings, vehicles, road and bridge projects and other needs that aren’t addressed in the budget. The plan is reviewed, and adjusted if needed, annually by the commissioners. If all of the projects were fully funded before the plan expires in 2013, the county will have spent $72.7 million.
 “I find the plan very helpful myself and I really do like quantifying quality issues by applying a numerical value to these things,” said chairperson Hap Channell.
Within the plan, the county has prioritized its projects with those affecting the largest number of citizens receiving top booking. Other factors that might send a project to the top of the list is if it has been vetted by the public or if the commissioners have considered the project several times previously. The commissioners can also choose to give a project top priority if it meets certain conditions—like being necessary for legal or public health and safety reasons.
At the top of its list of priorities is construction of a new detention center, which is in desperately in need of replacement, according to county manager Matthew Birnie.
“The issues with the current facility are that conditions of confinement don’t meet American Correctional [Association] standards and there is a safety issue with that building and design that makes supervision very difficult,” says Birnie. “It doesn’t matter if there is only one inmate in there. We need a new jail.”
   The Capital Improvement Plan calls for $834,000 to be spent on the detention center project in 2010, $2 million in 2011 and $3 million in 2012.
The five-year plan also includes a request from the Department of Public Works for $1.1 million to replace the Slate River Bridge on Highway 135 near the Crested Butte Cemetery. According to the request “The bridge crossing the Slate River is structurally sufficient, but functionally obsolete due to width and traffic.  Due to the heavy volume of automobile traffic and the number of trucks, replacement will require a significant detour structure.”
That project has $100,000 budgeted in 2009 for engineering and acquisition and seeks an additional $1 million in 2010 for construction.
Of the top 15 projects on this plan, only four of them were in the top 15 last year and all of the others are new projects.
“I hope that means we’re getting things done,” says Public Works director Marlene Crosby.
Another need identified in the plan is the addition of a Gunnison County sheriff sub-station in Mt. Crested Butte that has gotten a request for funding and had $150,500 already budgeted for in 2009. The total need for the project is $633,000.
“As the area expands…it will become necessary to station officers in the north end of the county.  This project would provide needed office space,” according to the plan, which says that the current contract between the Town of Mt. Crested Butte and the county has solidified law enforcement coverage through fiscal year 2009. The Mt. Crested Butte police department assists the county in jurisdictional coverage of the East River Valley north of Round Mountain. After the contract expires, the two entities will have the option to renegotiate to determine the future of law enforcement in the area.
There is also a project request for a new terminal at the Gunnison-Crested Butte Regional Airport at a cost of more than $30 million. According to the plan, the airport needs “to be expanded and updated in order to support the level of air and passenger traffic being generated…With the recently expanded airline service to the area and that need will only increase.”
Just because a project has a place in the five-year plan doesn’t mean it will get funded. The county commissioners and county staff will consider what parts of the plan to implement during an annual review.
For example, “Clearly there is a need, but how [the terminal] would get funded is not very clear and so it could be pretty far down the road,” says Birnie.
Other projects seeking funds in the plan are software that will make the records of the county clerk and recorder available for viewing online and a separate piece of software for the County Assessor that will replace the current software that could be obsolete in 2009.
“For me it’s a big help to see from last year’s list that half of the projects have been completed and with our short building season that a real good indicator that we’re following the process,” said Starr.
The commissioners will have the option to adopt the final plan at their regular meeting on Tuesday, July 15.