QUESTION
How does the requirement to set aside funding for borough-based jails affect the current budget's flexibility?
3:22:07
·
169 sec
Budget Director Jacques Jiha discusses the challenges of capital planning due to reserved funding for borough-based jails, impacting the city's budget flexibility.
- The city's capital planning capacity is approximately $10 billion, limited by the need to redistribute funds due to a front-loaded capital plan.
- Funds allocated for borough-based jails, required by a pre-COVID timeline for 2027, cannot be reallocated even though they will not be used by the set deadline.
- This restriction necessitates deferring other capital projects to maintain funding for the jails within the planned timeline.
- Additionally, capital rules hinder the capitalization of improvements to wages by 2027, forcing reliance on scarce expense dollars instead of capital tax dollars.
Nantasha Williams
3:22:07
Can you just I know you said it already in your testimony, but because Because the money has to be set aside to fulfill previous laws for us to have barrel based jails, can you Just save more time.
3:22:23
Help us to understand how that impacts the current budget and your inability to have flexibility because you have to keep this money locked even though there is really not a legitimate viable plan to actually use this money anytime soon.
Jacques Jiha
3:22:41
Yes, that's the challenge that we're dealing with on the capital planning side.
3:22:48
Currently, as I said, We have a very limited capacity, which is about $10,000,000,000.
3:22:55
And
Nantasha Williams
3:22:56
$10,000,000,000?
3:22:57
About
Jacques Jiha
3:22:58
less.
3:22:59
And to do everything that we need to do in terms of our capital plan.
3:23:04
And now we we have to do a redistribution of the funding because our capital plan is front loaded.
3:23:15
So but one of the challenges that we have, we cannot move the funding that is allocated for, right, because even though we know for sure that the resources are not going to utilize.
3:23:29
Okay?
3:23:29
Because the timeline that was created for for acres was prior to COVID, okay, which is 2027, August 27.
3:23:40
Now, we have to keep the funding there.
3:23:42
Even though we know, the timeline is not accurate, we will not spend those resources by 2027.
3:23:50
So what we have to do is basically, every capital program that is in the same time frame, we have to move them back.
3:23:58
Because without the room to accommodate them, if we have to keep the funding for hackers at you know, in in in the in the timeline where the community are.
3:24:10
So that's the challenge we're dealing with.
3:24:13
And the other challenge that also also have with the wipers, because 2027 is the deadline, we cannot capitalize in the pence right now on the wagers.
3:24:23
In other words, if we have to make any changes, any improvement to wagers, we cannot use capital tax dollars.
3:24:29
We have to use expense dollars, which we don't have, okay, to make any improvement because we cannot categorize, okay, those funding because the capital rules require that the funding, you know, the the asset has to be at least 5 years.
3:24:43
Okay?
3:24:43
We don't have 5 years left.
3:24:45
Okay?
3:24:46
So these are the timeline create immediate challenge for a symptom of managing the capital program and at the same time making investment in the workers as is to improve conditions.
