Adam Bramburger
Beaver Staff
Lennox and Addington County council received $50,000 from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities toward an enhanced asset management plan and directed staff to develop a request for proposals for a consultant to help with the development of that plan.
The decision comes as a response to a 2017 provincial regulation, which requires municipalities to consider asset management in budgeting and strategic planning. By this July 1, municipalities must have a published strategic asset management policy. By July 1, 2021 they must have an enhanced plan covering core infrastructure assets like water, wastewater, stormwater and roads and bridges.
Director of physical and financial services Stephen Fox said Lennox and Addington has had a formal asset management plan since 2013 and an even longer history of council being proactive to keep up with its capital assets. For close to 20 years, he noted, council has had a direct two-per-cent tax levy for roads and bridges, for example. It’s also made it a priority to seek sustainable revenue from upper levels of government.
Stone Mills councillor John Wise wondered why the County would need a consultant to update a plan that has been in place since 2013. Fox replied the initial plan was done entirely in house but the update is going to need some detailed engineering assessment on roads and bridges.
“That’s very specialized work and time consuming, representing probably half the cost,” he said. “With all the new regulations and there’s a component dealing with risk assessment and service delivery standards, we felt at this point in time to would probably make sense to have a consultant do that.”
Otherwise, Fox said he agreed it’s probably a better process to do more internally because you can have a better idea of the asset situations, which can lead to better management.
“So this is not simply for the province, there’s a knowledge gained for staff and for council,” agreed Wise.
Fox reported that currently, the County has a replacement value of $739,600,000 for all its capital assets, including roads, bridges, social housing and buildings like the John M. Parrott Centre, County Court House, museum, social services buildings and ambulance bases. The number also includes furnishings and equipment.
The County estimates an $18,460,000 investment annually is required to maintain the assets. Through reserves, grants, and transfers from Prince Edward County for social services, Fox said most of that money is in place. He estimates council has to bridge an annual funding gap of about $3.69 million.
“Council has done quite a good job of managing its infrastructure needs,” Fox said.
Loyalist councillor Ric Bresee asked Fox if he could offer a timeline, in a dream world, of when it may reach zero.
“We’ve done a good job with our assets and they’re in relatively good shape. I don’t know if we’ll get to zero, but this is a perfect world scenario,” Fox said. “We can always defer, we can always live with a few deficiencies. The County is making strides to reduce that gap.”
He cautioned those figures were based on maintaining existing assets. Should the County wish to increase its social housing stock or build another long-term care home, for example, the costs would be greater.