The Vermont Bond Bank will host its Fourth Annual Vermont Capital Planning Forum on April 10, 2025, from 9 am to 4 pm in Barre. The Forum costs $15. Municipal and school officials that submit a capital plan attend for free!
This in-person event helps governmental units of all sizes and capacity explore Vermont-specific best practices in capital planning.
What is Capital Planning?
Capital planning is a tool you can use to balance your municipality's long-term asset needs with its financial capacity to achieve them. Essentially, a capital plan is a projected spending plan to help avoid surprises that cause wide swings in a municipality's tax rate. It balances spending, saving, and borrowing.
Through capital planning, you:
- create a list of the municipality's capital assets, such as buildings, water and wastewater treatment plants, roads and bridges, vehicles, and major software, with their condition,
- identify purchases, repairs, and replacements that might be needed for a set time period into the future (ex. a 5-year or 10-year capital plan),
- develop cost estimates for the items,
- set priorities for future needs based on urgency, impact, and available resources, and
- develop a plan for financing priority needs.
With this information, you can develop a year-by-year program for the projects you'll undertake and when you'll complete them. Capital planning can help you keep your tax rate steady.
Why Should I Attend?
- Network with your peers and find partners to help you as your community moves through the capital planning process.
- Walk away with stories and examples of simple capital plans focused on a single topic (ex. transportation infrastructure to complex plans that have been built over time to include all a municipality's assets. You can use these plans to help you figure out what level of planning works for your town.
- Learn how solving an infrastructure gap can encourage housing development.
- Assess whether you are ready to begin capital planning and to start using a capital plan.
How Do I Learn More?
Visit the Vermont Bond Bank's Capital Planning Forum webpage for information and to register for this event.
Visit the Bond Bank's Capital Planning Resource Page for resources, such as videos, templates, related policies, and plan examples.