Fiscal Highlights - June 2014

The Legislature annually appropriates funds to the capital improvements line item in the capital budget for repairs of existing buildings.  The Legislature approves a list of all requested capital improvement projects from state agencies and institutions, and allows the State Building Board to allocate funding to the most critical of those approved projects.

This past year the State Building Board and the Division of Facilities Construction and Management implemented Legislative intent language that required them to "propose a prioritized scoring process" to determine allocation of capital improvements appropriations.  The new capital improvement process now includes a prioritized scoring process consisting of five steps as follows:

(1)  A Project Needs Request;

(2)  Preliminary Project Prioritization and Preliminary Scoring by the Building Board Director;

(3)  Preliminary Building Board Director Scored Project Review and Revisions Process involving agencies and institutions, the Division of Facilities Construction and Management, and the Building Board Director;

(4)  Submitting the revised Scored List to Board and a Utah State Legislature subcommittee involved with state facility design and construction; and

(5)  Review and Final Approval by the Utah State Building Board of the list for submittal to the Utah Legislature.

This process replaces a policy that prioritized distribution of appropriated funds based on the ratio of square footage of building space owned by the agency or institution.  The new process will examine actual needs, and appropriations are distributed accordingly.

During the 2014 General Session, the Legislature approved requested capital improvement projects amounting to over $195 million and appropriated $100.2 million to the capital improvements line item.  The State building Board met in April 2014 and allocated the $100.2 million as listed in the table below.  Projects receiving funding include infrastructure upgrades, roofing improvements, paving improvements, and general repairs to buildings.