CITY OF SEATTLE
RESOLUTION _________________
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A RESOLUTION establishing a capital project oversight work program for the Budget Committee for 2017.
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WHEREAS, Capital Improvement Program (CIP) oversight is a critical function of the Seattle City Council; and
WHEREAS, effective CIP oversight ensures transparent, accountable use of public dollars; and
WHEREAS, at times the Council has been constrained in its ability to exercise its full duty and authority to oversee CIP projects, such as when the Council first receives large appropriation requests for CIP projects where the project's scope has not been fully defined and/or more design work is needed to fully understand total costs and potential risks; and
WHEREAS, the Council's ability to perform effective capital oversight is dependent on access to thorough information and the opportunity to review and process this information in a timely manner; and
WHEREAS, City capital projects such as the Seawall Replacement and the utilities' New Customer Information System ran millions of dollars over their original proposed budget and Council's oversight would have been more effective with timely reporting and better defined processes for reviewing available reports;
WHEREAS, oversight for the 2017-2022 Proposed CIP was improved via increased internal Council staff review of changes to scope, schedule, and budget, including instituting an additional supervisory review of proposed CIP budget actions, seeking information from and holding conversations with some of the major departments on their project management practices and contingency usage, and conducting internal staff meetings to jointly discuss capital project issues across departments, all of which contributed to the development of proposed Council amendments to scope and budget for projects and imposition of capital controls via provisos; and
WHEREAS, there is significant opportunity to improve CIP reporting accountability to the Council and to use the C...
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