Having adequate public infrastructure is important to the effective and efficient delivery of services to the public. The acquisition, construction, expansion, maintenance, rehabilitation and upgrading of infrastructure results in a major demand on the financial resources of any government that must be planned for in advance and must be comprehensive. For these reasons, Virginia Beach annually develops a six-year Capital Improvement Program (CIP) to define needs, set priorities, plan funding and anticipate impacts of proposed capital projects on the operating budget of the government.
Starting in FY 2011-12 a $40 million annual capital investment is needed to ensure compliance with the regional consent order. A stepped sewer rate increase, beginning in FY 2011-12, is in place to meet the needed funding. Year 1 will generate an additional $4.16 million. This will enable the department to increase pay-as-you-go funding from $5 million to $8 million annually, to support increased debt service for the issuance of additional bond funding, and to increase operational staffing to address the increased workload.