North Frontenac Council - Oct 30/13

Jeff Green | Nov 07, 2013

Long Term Asset Management Plan

It has been several years since the Ontario government decided that they would like to see local municipalities put together long-term plans to ensure their own viability.

Knowing that municipalities are not in a position to complete larger infrastructure projects without provincial support, the province decided to use the carrot and stick approach. In order to encourage long-term planning, the province announced that not only will municipalities who complete “asset management plans” be put to the front of the line for provincial infrastructure grants, but those that do not complete the plans will eventually be left out altogether.

The province offered up money to help pay for those plans, and municipalities, sometimes begrudgingly, have been working away at the task of cataloguing all of their assets: roads, bridges, fire halls, community halls, offices and garages, etc. This involves assigning a dollar value to each piece of infrastructure, evaluating its state of repair and putting a cost to its short and long-term upkeep and a cost for its eventual replacement.

North Frontenac began preparing the groundwork for asset management 10 years ago, as it was the kind of project that fit the mindset of former Mayor Ron Maguire, a retired federal bureaucrat, and although the current mayor, Bud Clayton, differs from Maguire in many ways, he is on the same page as far as long-term financial planning.

Last week, several years of work was given form in a draft report that was presented to Council by Vicky Leakey of KPMG.

Leakey was reluctant to leave the report with Council, although she did in the end, because some of the numbers are not final (she asked me to give her back my copy before she left, wanting to make sure the numbers are final before they are put to the public).

But the general scope of the report is that North Frontenac needs to spend $13 million over the next 10 years in order to keep its existing infrastructure in good repair and improve those assets that are now, or will soon be needing major work.

The township already budgets for capital projects each year, and Leakey said that given the amount already budgeted each year, “at the end of the day we are suggesting the deficit is about $1 million over ten years”

The good news, according to Leakey, it that with an increase of $107,000 each year in the capital budget, the township should be able to accomplish the goals set out in the asset management report.

The final plan will be presented to Council later in November.

Vicky Leakey did point out, however, that there is a weakness in the report. Gravel roads are not included as assets.

Currently all work on gravel roads is captured in the township's operating budget as part of road maintenance. Asset management deals only with the separate capital budget. An evaluation of the capital needs for the township's gravel roads, (which make up 45% of the roads) is needed, Leakey said.

Over the next few months, the township will be working on an inventory of gravel roads, which includes looking at the state of the base for all the roads, and all the culverts and ditches as well.

Once that work is done, it will be added to the asset management plan.

The roads and bridges aspect of asset management is not likely to cause much controversy in North Frontenac, but when the long-term cost of maintaining township buildings and the viability of the current township office building are concerned, there is little consensus on council, or among the public.

A proposal to receive the draft asset management plan, and then begin considering if a new township office is a viable project, was not well received by some on Council.

“I think we should consider the way the current office is laid out. If you look at the space that is available and completely change the way the offices are laid out in the building, you’d find enough room,” said Councilor Wayne Good. “Before deciding if we can build something, let’s look at what we already have.”

In the end only the motion to receive the draft asset management plan was approved.