Developed as an ICMA Leadership Capstone Project, the CIP Toolkit provides a practical, scalable framework that helps local governments transition from informal, reactionary capital decision-making to a disciplined, transparent, and repeatable process. While intentionally designed to support municipalities and counties with populations under 150,000, the toolkit is adaptable and applicable to organizations of all sizes and levels of CIP maturity. 

The toolkit is organized around a rolling 10-year Capital Improvement Program, providing a long-term planning horizon that allows local governments to align capital investments with strategic goals, asset lifecycle needs, and long-term financial capacity. It establishes a formal process for identifying, evaluating, prioritizing, funding, implementing, and closing out capital projects with an estimated cost of $50,000 or more, while remaining flexible enough to reflect local governance Structures and resource constraints.