Glossary

The Words In A Condition Report, In Plain English

Each term gets one sentence you can read in seconds, then a few more for anyone who wants the detail. Where a number is typical rather than a rule, we say so.

Written for the people who approve the budget, not only the people who prepare it.

How They Fit Together

From An Inspection To A Funded Plan

Most of these terms are steps in one process. Each step feeds the next.

Step 1: Assess
Inspect each building, system by system.
FCA
Step 2: Count The Backlog
Add up what is worn and what it costs to fix.
Deferred Maintenance
Step 3: Compare
Divide the backlog by replacement cost.
FCI
Step 4: Plan
Rank projects and schedule them by year.
CIP
Step 5: Fund
Test the budget, a bond or a tax change.
Millage

Building Condition

The words in a condition report: what is worn, how badly, and what it would cost.

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Facility Condition Assessment(FCA)

An inspection of a building, system by system, that records what condition each part is in and what it would cost to fix or replace.

An assessment produces the numbers behind everything else on this page: the list of needed repairs, their costs, and when each system will wear out. It is typically repeated every few years, or run on part of a portfolio each year on a rolling schedule. Our assessments rate 15 building systems on a 1–10 condition scale.

Where you’ll see itFacility Condition Assessment

Deferred Maintenance

Repairs and replacements that were due but have been put off, usually because the budget ran short.

Often called the repair backlog, it is counted in dollars: what it would cost today to bring each worn system back to good working order. Left alone, it tends to grow, because a failing part can damage the systems around it. It is the top half of the Facility Condition Index.

Where you’ll see itFacility Condition Assessment

Replacement Cost

What it would cost today to build an equivalent building, or put in an equivalent system, from scratch.

Also called current replacement value. It is usually estimated from a cost per square foot for that type of building, not from what the building originally cost or what it would sell for. It is the bottom half of the Facility Condition Index, so an out-of-date replacement cost makes every index look better or worse than it really is.

Where you’ll see itFacility Condition Assessment

Facility Condition Index(FCI)

A building’s repair backlog divided by what it would cost to replace the building, shown as a percentage.

An index of 4% means the needed repairs add up to 4% of what a new building would cost, so lower is better. A common reading is under 5% good, 5–10% fair and over 10% poor; those are the default bands in our platform (Healthy, Watch and Critical), and an owner can set its own. Because it is a ratio, it puts a small branch library and a large public works yard on the same scale.

Where you’ll see itFacility Condition Assessment

Remaining Useful Life

How many more years a building system is expected to keep working before it needs replacing.

It starts from the system’s typical lifespan and its age, then an inspection can shorten or lengthen it: a 20-year roof that is 15 years old has about five years left on paper. It decides when a replacement shows up in the capital plan. In our project scoring it carries 30 of 100 points, and a system with a year or less left is flagged to fund first.

Where you’ll see itFacility Condition Assessment

Uniformat

A standard way of sorting a building into its parts, such as roof, walls, heating and cooling, plumbing and electrical, so every report groups them the same way.

It is widely used in construction cost estimating and condition assessment. Its top-level groups are lettered, from A (Substructure) and B (Shell) through D (Services) to G (Building Sitework). Our 15 building systems map to these groups, so a report reads the way an estimator or reviewer expects.

Where you’ll see itFacility Condition Assessment

Capital Planning And Funding

How repairs and replacements become a ranked, funded, multi-year plan.

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Capital Improvement Plan(CIP)

A multi-year schedule of major building and infrastructure projects, giving each one a cost, a year and a way to pay for it.

Local governments commonly adopt one alongside the annual budget, often covering five to ten years. The first year usually becomes the capital budget; the later years are a plan, revised each cycle. A good plan shows how projects were ranked, so a council or board can see why one roof comes before another.

Where you’ll see itCapital Planning

Renewal

Replacing a worn-out building system with a like-for-like one, such as a new roof or a new boiler.

Renewal keeps a building doing what it already does. It differs from a repair, which fixes part of a system, and from an improvement, which adds space or capability. The difference matters because funding rules, and boards, often treat them differently; our capital plans tag each project as renewal, repair, code and accessibility, or improvement.

Where you’ll see itCapital Planning

Millage

A property tax rate expressed in mills, where one mill is $1 of tax for every $1,000 of taxable property value.

Raising the rate by one mill brings in about $1 more for every $1,000 of taxable value in the jurisdiction (in Georgia, the tax digest). Capital plans often test a millage increase as one way to close a funding gap. Our funding scenarios set a one-mill increase beside a bond and the current budget, so a board can compare them.

Where you’ll see itCapital Planning

Financial Reporting

How buildings and equipment show up in a government’s financial statements.

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GASB Statement 34

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) rule that set the basic financial reporting model for state and local governments, including how they report capital assets such as buildings, roads and equipment.

Issued in 1999, it requires governments to report capital assets and their depreciation in government-wide statements, with a note that shows how those assets changed during the year. Finance staff prepare that note, and the auditor reviews it. Our capital asset schedule provides the asset-level listing they work from: cost, in-service date and accumulated depreciation for each building. It supports the audited disclosure; it does not replace it.

Where you’ll see itCapital Planning

Capital Asset Schedule

A list of an owner’s buildings and major equipment showing what each cost, when it went into service and how much of its value has been used up.

Finance staff use it to prepare the capital asset note in the annual financial report. Each line ties an asset to its original cost, its useful life and its accumulated depreciation, so totals can be checked against the books. Ours draws on the same building records as the condition assessment, so the two describe the same buildings.

Where you’ll see itCapital Planning

Growth And Land

How a community plans for, and pays for, the facilities that growth needs.

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Impact Fee

A one-time charge on new development that pays for the added public facilities growth requires, such as fire stations, parks or roads.

State laws and courts generally require the fee to match the demand new development creates, so it cannot pay for shortfalls that already exist. A study works out the cost of the added capacity for each new home or square foot of building. In Georgia, the rules are set by the Development Impact Fee Act. Impact fee studies are advisory work done by our team, not a feature of our software.

Where you’ll see itImpact Fee Studies

Level Of Service

The amount or quality of a public service a community has decided to provide, such as acres of park per 1,000 residents.

It is the yardstick for both planning and fees: if the standard is a set number of park acres per 1,000 residents, each 1,000 new residents create the need for that many more acres. It is usually based on what the community provides today, which keeps a fee fair to new residents.

Where you’ll see itImpact Fee Studies

Geographic Information Systems(GIS)

Mapping software that places information on a map, so each building, parcel or service area can be seen and compared by location.

Data sits in layers, such as parcels, buildings, condition and service areas, that can be stacked and compared. That answers questions a spreadsheet cannot, like which fire stations serve the neighborhoods that are growing fastest. Our geospatial engagements build these layers for you; it is advisory work by our team, not a feature of our platform.

Where you’ll see itGeospatial & GIS

Asset Strategy

The measures an owner uses to decide whether to hold, refinance or sell.

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Net Operating Income(NOI)

What a property earns in a year after paying its operating costs, before any loan payments.

Operating costs include utilities, insurance, property taxes, maintenance and management. Loan payments, major capital projects and depreciation are left out. It is the starting point for valuing an income-producing property and the top half of the debt service coverage ratio.

Where you’ll see itAsset Strategy

Debt Service Coverage Ratio(DSCR)

A property’s yearly operating income divided by its yearly loan payments, which shows whether the income covers the debt.

A ratio of 1.0x means income exactly covers the payments; below that, the owner is making up the difference from somewhere else. Many commercial lenders look for about 1.2x or higher, though the floor varies by lender and property type. We use it in asset strategy work when an owner weighs a refinance or a sale.

Where you’ll see itAsset Strategy

Internal Rate Of Return(IRR)

The yearly return an investment earns over its whole life, counting when each dollar goes in and when it comes back.

Technically, it is the discount rate at which all of an investment’s cash flows, from purchase to sale, net to zero in today’s dollars. Because it accounts for timing, it lets an owner compare holding a building for ten years with selling it now. It is sensitive to the assumed sale price, so read it alongside the assumptions behind it.

Where you’ll see itAsset Strategy

Want These Numbers For Your Own Buildings?

We work out the backlog, the index and a ranked plan for each building you own, and show where each figure came from.