As the town forms more extensive and formal policies and plans around managing its assets, a warning from the treasurer reminded council the future could be costly.
Marjory Leonard presented a draft strategic asset management policy to the Strategic Initiatives Committee at the meeting last night (June 17), and said there is currently a shortfall in the town’s reserve fund dedicated to replacing and maintaining the town’s current assets.
“I believe I said at budget time, the infrastructure gap was still approximately $9 million,” said Leonard. “We’re not putting enough away and we’ve exhausted the contingency reserves we do have.”
Asset management planning is not new. The province began requiring municipalities to have a formal plan in place in 2016. Without an asset management plan, a municipality cannot qualify for funding from the provincial or federal governments. In 2017, the province updated the legislation requiring further, more detailed plans as well as a general policy for each municipality to use for decision making by council and senior staff.
The philosophy behind asset management planning is that each municipality in the province have a plan in place - and the money - to maintain, replace, and construct infrastructure as required to deliver services to its residents.
“The policy that we’re looking at tonight is going to guide how our strategy works for long-term processes,” said Leonard. “We have a reserve for lifecycle replacement of $5 million ... With the amount of money we put in there, we’re just keeping our roads up to snuff.”
“This policy will drive the strategy of the plan itself,” said Leonard, adding the province requires an asset management plan for the town’s core assets be published by July 1, 2021. “The plan is where we determine the funding results.”
The asset management policy is a set of principles to guide decisions, whereas the asset management plan is a detailed list of the town’s assets with an assessment of their condition and a plan for their replacement.
Councillor Kathy Jeffery was interested in the climate change aspect of the asset management policy and suggested the policy should be linked to the town’s procurement policy to encourage the town to make greener choices when it comes to purchases from concrete to vehicles.
The province requires that each municipality include climate change as a factor in the asset management policy.
“The primary expectation set forth by the province is that, wherever weather is a factor in design and operational planning of municipal services, the potential risks and vulnerabilities caused by climate change will need to be considered,” states Leonard’s staff report on the policy.
She added the province expects to see efforts by each municipality to mitigate and adapt to climate change in the area of asset management.
Leonard said many of the town’s policies will go “hand-in-hand” with the Strategic Asset Management Policy once it is approved, since many of the town’s policies have an impact on how and what assets are built in the town.
Chief Administrative Officer Fareed Amin also noted town staff aim to launch a “more robust” consultation process as part of the town’s budget deliberations, which would give residents more opportunity to bring up issues around asset management - or other matters - before a budget is set for the following year.
Using resident feedback and the town’s Strategic Asset Management Policy as well as recommendations from staff, council will have more information and tools to use when making decisions around town assets from bike racks to sidewalks and from ball diamonds to ice rinks for the annual budget.
The Strategic Asset Management Policy is required to be published on the town website by July 1 of this year. The draft policy will be before council at the June 24 meeting.
You can read the draft here.
