Capital assets are the largest investments for most governments: from planning, to financing, to construction, to operations, maintenance, and replacement. Therefore, making generational investments and maintaining capital infrastructure in the condition necessary to preserve and enhance your community’s vitality and quality of life takes forethought and planning.

This course will walk you through examples using best practices in long-range capital planning, budgeting, and asset maintenance planning as a foundation to discuss successful methods and many of the common challenges associated with the process.

Those who successfully complete this seminar should be able to:

• Learn the importance of preparing a long-range capital plan
• Identify the key characteristics of an effective capital planning process
• Learn what information you need to initiate an effective capital planning process
• Leverage existing work from across departments in the development of the capital plan
• Identify common obstacles to developing a long-range capital plan and learn strategies to overcome them
• Develop strategies for incorporating meaningful stakeholder participation in your capital planning process
• Learn how capital project budgeting differs from the operating budget and how the capital budget can be incorporated into the annual operating budget
• Gain a better understanding of the role and responsibility of the finance officer in preparing a capital improvement plan
• Differentiate capital planning priorities and strategies between new projects and existing infrastructure asset management
• Explore the importance of asset management on the capital plan and its relationship to the operating budget

This course is taught by experienced capital management practitioners and GFOA staff. Instructors will be familiar with GFOA best practices, are subject matter experts, and have experience as an analyst, finance director, budget director, CFO, or CEO of various size local governments.