Senate passes very good capital budget for cities

After several years of challenging capital budgets, we are encouraged by the capital budget that passed the Senate unanimously on Thursday March 30.

Highlights include:

• $97 million for a Public Works Trust Fund loan list. This would be the first funded list in the last four years, and only the third in nine years.
• $60 million for stormwater projects. We are awaiting final confirmation but it appears that this would be enough to restore all delayed stormwater projects from previous budget plus a small new grant round.
• $20 million for the list of projects created by the Fish Barrier Removal Board, on which AWC serves. It is exciting to see this investment into smarter and more strategic investments into local and private culvert replacements.
• $99 million for low-income housing including $85 million for the Housing Trust Fund.
• $35 million for the Centennial Clean Water Account including sewer grants for communities in economic hardship. $35 million is enough to meet the need of just the first year of the biennium. AWC is working to increase this funding level in the final budget negotiations to provide capacity for the full biennium.