Staff’s rankings for capital projects catches city finance committee’s attention

Evanston Finance and Budget Committee members, looking to pare down the $348 million in spending in City Manager Luke Stowe’s 2027 proposed budget, may gain some insight from a staff report ranking capital projects. Officials included the list in their Thursday, Oct. 29, presentation on the capital improvement projects budget, which covers more than 100 projects. Those include several large-scale facility projects, such as consulting for a new Police/Fire Headquarters, that currently lack a dedicated funding source. Chris Sous, the city’s assistant city engineer, told committee members the list ranked projects according to set criteria. Committee members said they were seeing the list for the first time. The criteria included the condition of the city asset in question, whether the project was “shovel ready” and whether it had an external funding source rather than relying solely on the city’s already strained bonding capacity, Sous said. Some high-profile projects rank