Hill County Commission discusses possible capital improvement plan

After their weekly business meeting last Thursday, the Hill County Commission had a meeting with Great West Engineering’s Craig Erickson and Jonathan Weaver to discuss the possibility of the county creating a capital improvement plan, which may open grant opportunities for the county.

Erickson said funding agencies put an increasing amount of weight on capital improvement plans, and that in recent years the federal government is following suit.

He said he was recently helping another county apply for federal funding for two separate projects and both times he was asked for the county’s CIP, which hasn’t happened before.

He said the Montana Department of Commerce is encouraging counties to start developing these documents, and he understands why.

Erickson said capital improvement plans are a useful tool for budgeting and can make projects much more likely to receive grant funding as long as the documents are kept updated.

He said a lot of grant providers are tired of giving money to projects that never happen, often for lack of community support, and having projects in a CIP is usually a great indication that a community supports a project and it will make it across the finish line.

Developing a CIP is an investment, he said, but a big part of the reason they are talking about this now is because the state is providing a massive increase in funding for the development of CIPs and similar planning documents.

He said the Department of Commerce has received a lot of American Rescue Plan Act funds this year from projects that were given money, but were never started, and a big chunk of those funds have been allocated to grants to help counties create CIPs and other planning documents.

Erickson said counties typically can only apply for one $15,000 grant with a 50 percent match for creating these documents, but this year they may have access to as many as four $40,000 grants that require the county to match 20 percent of total project costs.

The Department of Commerce has indicated that this is almost certainly a one-time opportunity, he said, so if the county is interested in making a CIP, the time is now.

Hill County Commissioner Jake Strissel said he thinks this is a really good opportunity for the county.

Erickson said the plans can generally include any and all capital improvement projects costing $5,000 or more, and if the county wants to make a comprehensive plan including all county infrastructure, they can absolutely do that.

The only thing he would exclude, he said, was any projects at the Havre-Hill County Airport, which he said already has robust planning documents.

He said the scope of work will be the primary determinant of what creating a CIP will cost, and doing a comprehensive survey of all the county’s infrastructure can certainly drive up the cost, but he’s worked with counties that have done exactly that with great success.

He said they included everything from their fairgrounds to nursing homes, and if Hill County wanted to do that, they could.

The commissioners briefly discussed whether to decide whether to pursue creating a plan or determine its potential scope first, and Erickson said he thinks they should determine the potential scope first, and he’d be happy to meet with them in person to go over that and give them a price estimate.

He said while this is a one-time opportunity, their timeline for submitting applications and requests is a ways off and the Department of Commerce is very reasonable when they get requests for extensions, so the county doesn’t have to rush into a decision.

He said public meetings are part of the process of applying for a CIP, so the public will have a chance to hear about details, but, in his experience, such meetings rarely draw much of a crowd.

Erickson said he believes a well-crafted CIP will see a significant return on investment for the county and encouraged the commission to consider it.