Adair Capital Improvement Program Planning Client Case Study

Federal Funding and Financial Planning Facilitate Capital Improvements

Discovering funding sources is an essential piece of a successful Capital Improvement Plan (CIP). Snyder and Associates’ municipal engineering expert Dave Sturm, P.E., PLS, shares the process that helped the town of Adair, Iowa attain the necessary funding to plan and complete projects that improved their local infrastructure without raising taxes.

Our team helped city leaders prioritize projects and create a realistic budget that brought the community’s future into focus. We also recommended they partner with a financial planner to help develop a sound fiscal strategy. Additionally, we assisted the city in identifying and applying for federal funding available for their projects. These efforts resulted in millions of dollars in grants and loans, which enabled Adair to complete vital projects without passing down costs to residents. Listen in to hear more about how our team helped this thriving community create and execute its first CIP.

City of Adair Client Case Study

We have been working with the City of Adair now for about seven years. We started looking at all their project needs, and we got ourselves involved, as well as a local financial advisor, to help them go through their budgeting process.

With the help of USDA, CDBG grants, and the financial advisor showing them how they can pay for all the projects that we had put together:

• We’ve completed a bridge rehabilitation project that was over $2 million.
• We’ve completed a couple of street projects that have totaled over a million dollars in the last seven years.
• We’ve also, through USDA, worked with their local city guides and received grants and loans for about $3 million worth of water main, water tower, and backup generator improvements for their water system.

Those projects have all been completed, and we’re now working forward on another street project and looking at their sewer system. A couple of years ago, they even completed a residential subdivision through all of this financial planning and help from us with cost estimating, exhibits, and finding out ways to pay for this.

The town of Adair is not a very large community at all, but they were able to accomplish all of this basically without raising taxes, just through funding agencies and through their financial advisor’s advice. Things have been working great. You have to take the time to sit down with them and create this Capital Improvement Plan. Even though for Adair, it’s informal, it’s not really a written-down plan. But we get their thoughts and ideas of what they want to complete, and we guide them forward.

Dave Sturm, P.E., PLS

Atlantic Business Unit Leader