Bearing · Project prioritization for public agencies
Every call for projects, capital program and grant round ends the same way: a ranked list, a funding line, and a board or council that has to stand behind both. Bearing keeps the whole process in one place, from the first application to the ranking residents can check.
A smaller budget moves the funding line, and each project that no longer fits says why.
Sponsors and applicants, board and council members, and residents want to know how the list was made. When the scores live in spreadsheets and the reasons in meeting notes, staff spend weeks rebuilding the answer. With Bearing, the answer is the record.
Why didn't my project make it?
Every project below the line says why, such as the fund source and year it didn't fit.
What would more money buy?
Scenarios show what moves when a budget or a weight changes, before the vote.
Who scored it, and how?
Every score is on the record, with its reviewer, any change and the reason given for it.
For your board and committees
Committee members answer simple questions, like whether safety matters more than access and by how much. Bearing turns their answers into weights as they go, flags answers that don't hang together, and counts every member equally.
For planning staff
Switch to another weight set, like your technical committee's, and the list re-ranks with the funding line redrawn. Every total breaks down by goal, so anyone can see why a project moved.
For planning staff
Try a different budget, weight set or funding rule as a scenario, then put it beside the baseline: which projects cross the line, how much money moves, and how much the order changed.
For reviewers
After a reviewer scores a project, Claude can offer a second reading, with the passages from the application it relied on. The reviewer keeps their score or revises it, and the choice is recorded either way.
For residents and your board
Once the board adopts the ranking, you publish it with each project's score by goal and the years it's funded, on pages that work on any device.
Bearing speaks your agency’s language: you name your cycles, projects, submitters and the body that adopts the ranking. Transportation features (air-quality conformity, NEPA class, federal performance measures, TIP and RTP templates) are a module you switch on.
Starter packs for city and county capital improvement programs, competitive grant programs, water and wastewater utilities, and parks, schools and facilities: cycle templates, criteria libraries with rubric levels, project types, and fund-source and target presets, all starting points you edit.
Regional transportation
Where Bearing started. The transportation module adds air-quality conformity, NEPA class and federal performance measures, with templates for a TIP call for projects and an RTP update.
City and county capital improvement programs
A five-year CIP that funds mandates and safety ahead of general capital, with criteria for asset condition, service, adopted plans, operating cost and readiness. Departments submit; the council adopts.
Informed by GFOA capital-planning practice and ISO 55000
Competitive grant programs
Grant rounds in one pool or two, with eligibility and minimum-match screening and awards that can be less than the request, plus a state revolving fund priority list. Applicants apply; your board adopts.
Informed by the Uniform Guidance's merit and risk review
Water and wastewater utilities
A risk-based utility CIP that weighs the likelihood of failure against its consequence, and a master plan in bands out to 20 years. Divisions submit; the board of directors adopts.
Informed by EPA's asset-management questions and ISO 55000
Parks, schools and facilities
A five-year facilities capital plan that puts life safety, code and accessibility work first, and a long-range master plan, with criteria for condition, use and life-cycle cost. A school district can call its submitters sites.
Informed by ADA transition plans and ISO 55000
Starting points, not answers
Every template, criterion, project type and preset is yours to edit. Targets come without values and thresholds are placeholders: the figures are your agency's own. A framework named here informed a pack; Bearing doesn't certify a program against it.
Built for how public agencies already rank projects and applications, from the first application to the vote of the board or council.
Tell us a little about your agency and we’ll show you Bearing on the demo closest to your work, with time for the questions your board, council and applicants are asking you.
Beside our demo transportation commission there’s a demo city: see its five-year CIP and a neighborhood grant round, from call to sealed adoption.
A walkthrough covers