AI Assisted Comparison of the March 2023 Deferred Maintenance List and Cincy on Track

After the Eastside neighborhoods experienced such serious flooding earlier this summer, I was surprised to find that Cincy on Track, the city’s infrastructure spending plan for the railroad money, does not include any projects for sewers, water or stormwater management. Notwithstanding any explanation, that was a surprising finding.

That revelation got me wondering what other deferred maintenance may have been left out of Cincy on Track. I first wanted to check the city’s list of deferred maintenance. I asked AI to do a crosswalk analysis of two documents:

1) a deferred maintenance list issued by the city administration in March 2023, pursuant to a request from the city council which totals appx.$250 million; and

2) the Cincy on Track Plan, which also totals appx $250 million.

I wanted the analysis to determine the extent to which the Cincy on Track Plan included items on the deferred maintenance list. The results are interesting.

I have not yet checked the analysis for accuracy but at first glance I did see that the $40 million upgrade of the Fleet Maintenance Garage is not in Cincy on Track according to the analysis, but the city and the media have reported that the upgrade is in process. Maybe the city is not using railroad money for the project? We will try to resolve any of those types of discrepancies we find in the analysis.

The entire analysis and source documents have been posted above. Feel free to try your own AI analysis or check for errors or omissions.

There is a lot more work necessary to enable the public to see exactly how the rairoad money is being accounted for and exactly it is being used for being used for – not just the plan.

Last I checked, probably somewhere between $50 million and $80 million is being comingled in the city’s investment account. There needs to be accounting rules in place to ensure compliance with the state law but the city is not cooperating. We want the proceeds from the Trust Fund to be treated like all the other restricted funds but apparently the city wants as few strings attached to the railroad money as possible.