Editor’s note: If you missed it, Part 1 of this story will help you learn more about St. Paul’s Capital Improvement Budget (CIB) process. Here in Part 2, we propose ways to fix it.
In Part 1 of this two-part series, we provided an overview and firsthand assessment of St. Paul’s little-known “Capital Improvement Budget” Community Proposal system. In the current system, citizens can apply for funding for neighborhood infrastructure improvements — things like bike racks or better lighting in parks, pedestrian and traffic safety projects or improvements at community centers — by submitting a multi-page, grant-like proposal.
We called out the arcane and sometimes opaque nature of the proposal process, noted the highly competitive nature of having only $1 million to spread around and outlined its often counterintuitive requirements for community submissions, like the fact that proposed improvements must last at least 10 years and must improve “safety” if implemented.
Now, instead of merely criticizing the current process or proposing to magically swell the City of Saint Paul’s underfilled coffers, here in Part 2 we are providing the following practical suggestions that we believe could improve the CIB process for the city and its citizens alike.
Provide an Interactive Map
Quite often, when an organization or government requests community feedback, the requesting entity provides an interactive map at a website. The state-funded Safe Routes to School grants operate with such a tool, for one. The engagement and planning process for St. Paul’s Transportation Safety Action Plan allowed citizens to contribute to this map in 2023.
With such an interactive — and more importantly, intuitive — map, any user could drop a pin at a location and write a blurb about what they would like to see changed. This simple tool would require few if any instructions, and would allow for quick-and-dirty crowdsourcing of ideas, even from those with little time or interest in investing an entire evening to drafting a proposal (or researching “What the heck is ‘CPTED‘?”). We strongly recommend leveraging such a tool for the next CIB cycle in order to cast a wider net for proposals and willing applicants alike.
Crowdsource Without Funding
Another related option to reduce the difficulty of completing the applications would be switching the CIB process to a pure idea-crowdsourcing platform, irrespective of the potential cost of each project, and leave the formal proposal steps up to city staff. For example, residents could spitball ideas for improving their neighborhoods using the interactive map idea, as noted above. As another example, the City of Minneapolis rolled out a Geographic Information System (GIS) tool to crowdsource street safety concerns.
Early Outreach
Getting diverse and equitable proposals from a wide swath of the city’s constituents is no small task. To get the wheels turning among a wider group of applicants, we suggest a broad city outreach to raise the profile of the CIB process. (May we suggest a catchier name, while we’re at it?)
Community meetings, council member monthly email blasts, the District Councils and flyers on church bulletin boards — all could raise awareness early in the process. Use social media posts. Submit letters, features or ads to the local newspaper or equivalent. The focus here, especially early, could be on the neighborhoods most in need of further city investments, such as the northern and eastern parts of the city, which appear to also garner the fewest proposals — and awards — in practice.
District Councils, which have limited staff time and where volunteers do a majority of the work, could be recruited as partners tasked with reaching out to people who might have ideas for projects but not be keyed into the process already. The onus, however, should be on the city and its staff to ensure that citywide reach and approved projects are realized.
Expand the Timeline
The tight timeline — the application portal was open for about a month in 2022, and for just 17 days in the first round in 2024 — makes submitting applications difficult for applicants, but also for the appointed, volunteer citizens who compose the CIB committee. CIB meetings are open to the public and regularly held at the Rondo Community Library on Dale Street and University Avenue. The CIB committee members are tasked with evaluating a large to very-large number of applications (roughly 25 to 80 submitted proposals) over a short amount of time (on the scale of weeks to a month or two). It seems unlikely to us that these committee members would be able to give full and careful consideration to each application when they’re asked to read dozens of applications over the course of only a few weeks.
Provide Examples of Successfully Funded Projects and Costs
The million-dollar pool of available project funding may be a lot of money to a typical person, but for city projects it is quickly stretched thin. Potential applicants, typically laypeople from the community, would benefit from exposure to a library of examples of submitted and funded CIB projects. Key elements of these examples would include the price and scale of successful past projects. The typical St. Paul resident may not know how expensive infrastructure improvements are. More detail and clarity from the outset should lead to a more honed pool of realistic project applications.
For example, a proposal to add a flashing pedestrian crossing beacon might seem like a simple, low-cost project, but recent installation costs have been estimated at $50,000 to $65,000 or more. A potential applicant, having reviewed previous successful CIB projects, might choose to submit a scaled-down, lower-cost version of a proposal in hopes that it would go from a long shot to a good bet for approval.
Cost-tiering
Speaking of cost, one of the major benefits of the current CIB process is that proposed project applications are budgeted, and city staff estimate the costs for a full build-out of the projects. So even if the project isn’t funded, the applicant (and the city) now have the idea and its potential cost on their radar.
Each of us has managed to submit a project proposal with a greater estimated build cost than the entire year’s CIB funds. This was obviously a nonstarter for CIB funding, but having preliminary engineering analysis done by city staff could lead to implementation in the future, outside the CIB framework.
We propose that, where applicable, projects could be submitted under a Good, Better, Best system in which a basic “Good” version of the project could be funded even if the “Best” version could not. For example, providing a gravel trail connection instead of a graded and paved version, or providing new bike racks at a handful of parks instead of dozens of them. Or perhaps using paint as traffic calming if funds for concrete curbs are unrealistic. If the applicant isn’t sure how to cut costs, perhaps city staff could offer tiered, lower-cost alternatives based on their analysis and cost estimations.
Clarify the Goals at the Outset
More clarity on the overall goals of the CIB system would be helpful. For example, are some repeat applications or types of applications totally outside the scope of what the city and committee are looking for? Is there a way to reduce the number of applications (without excluding anyone) in order to keep the CIB committee’s workload from being so huge?
For instance, the mandate of the objective criteria, discussed in Part 1, should be made abundantly and immediately clear to anyone looking into making an application. We also suggest providing a simplified explanation of the Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) evaluation criteria in laypersons’ terms.
Plain-Language Proposals
The average citizen likely has a few good ideas for improving their immediate neighborhood but may not be interested in writing — or qualified to write — a detailed grant-style application. Instead of asking for each proposal to address and meet the CPTED criteria, we propose instead to allow ideas to take the form of plain-language proposals.
Such a proposal could include a) a simple location, b) what should be done and c) why it would improve the community or improve safety. Then, city staff could adapt the proposal or solicit feedback, such as by phone, to complete the proposal for final submission. For example, based on the plain-language proposal, the city staff could engage with the applicant and explore how they feel the CPTED criteria could be met by their proposal in a plain-language dialogue.
Paperwork Buddies
Separately, and once the process is announced and open for submissions, those citizens with ideas but who lack grant-writing confidence could be paired up with designated “paperwork buddies.” A paperwork buddy could be someone willing to help translate plain-language ideas into applications. The CIB application process today is essentially grant writing, and can be overwhelming. These paperwork buddies could be citizen volunteers or city staff who could do a little handholding or tutoring.
We have already engaged in such assistance in previous CIB proposals in an ad hoc manner and were pleased with the results. We also cautiously note that certain generative AI tools could be leveraged to help bridge the gap between ideas and formal proposals, or at least identify aspects that could benefit from additional revisions. (We also wonder if such AI could perhaps generate a more striking name than “CIB.”)
Keep and Make Use of Past Proposals
Many good proposals don’t make the final cut, but the only way for ideas to be considered again in the next biannual CIB cycle is for the applicants to resubmit them and go through the whole process again. Community-submitted ideas and applications, especially the runners-up, could be saved and reconsidered through multiple rounds of CIB funding. Or applicants who had promising proposals could be invited to submit them again, perhaps after incorporating city feedback.
Other sources of funding, such as outside grants, could also be sought for a community-submitted project with aligned goals, but outside the city’s budget. Good ideas could be adopted and incorporated into regular budgets by the city’s Parks and Recreation or Public Works departments, as applicable.
Conclusion
St. Paul’s CIB process has value even as it exists today. Community submissions have already led to worthy improvements in neighborhoods across the city. We submit, however, that it has significant unrealized potential to be even better. We look forward to the final report to the St. Paul City Council’s Audit Committee, expected to be completed this month, and hope that a careful and critical evaluation of the program will lead to an even better, more inclusive and more equitable process in the future.
We urge the city to adopt at least a few of our proposals to reach a wider swath of people and find ways to fund as many projects as possible, even if simplified for cost considerations. We also hope that CIB projects will be funded in the places of greatest need, while filing away worthy proposals that may not have funding yet. We know that the city staff’s time is limited, so the more we as a community can pitch in, the better.
Finally, we urge any readers who are residents of St. Paul to think about and submit at least one proposal in their neighborhood in the next Community Proposal CIB cycle, likely in 2026! And seriously, let’s work on jazzing up that dull and forgettable CIB name.
All photos by Lisa Nelson