Asset management is complicated, acting city manager Valerie Braga assured members of city council during their noon-hour meeting held last Thursday.

Council has identified asset management as a priority. A consultant’s report suggests the city could get to where it needs to be in three years, at an estimated cost of $1.35 million.

The consultant who made recommendations in 2015 regarding the implementation of asset management in the city has reviewed the progress made in the last four years, Braga told council.

She’s come up with a new set of recommendations to continue the work, which includes hiring staff to assist with the initiative.

Braga said a new steering committee of city managers has been formed to guide the development of an asset management plan.

With council identifying assessment management as a priority, the work now will largely be at the operational level, she said.

Braga said the city has made progress since 2015, particularly with its road infrastructure.

But it still needs to further it along to bring all the different city departments under the same roof, where departments can share and access the information, she said.

Ultimately, Braga said, it’s a system that will keep staff aware of equipment and other assets are nearing the end of their life by factoring in things like depreciation, while providing a means of considering how maintenance might prolong it.

If a road needs work, for instance, an asset management system could provide an analysis of different options and other information such as the status of the water and sewer infrastructure beneath the roadway.

It could provide an assessment of what $100,000 in maintenance could do to prolong the required capital investment, while generating an assessment of what the same work would cost in two years time.

Braga said asset management builds in the level of public service residents expect.

Peter O’Blenes is the city’s director of infrastructure and operations.

He told members of council the city has achieved significant progress in the development of asset management for its network of roads, to the point of having a management model.

It was through using the model that it was determined that ripping up and resurfacing the top five centimetres of asphalt on Second Avenue was the way to go at this juncture, he said.

When the new operations building off Range Road is folded into the asset management initiative, he explained, they’ll know the life expectancy of the boiler system. They’ll also know how long the solar panels on the roof are expected to last.

It’s not likely office desks and staff computers will be identified individually in the plan, but will likely be pooled together, Braga said.

A $250,000 server, on the other hand, would likely be identified as an individual asset.

Coun. Dan Boyd expressed some concern that developing an asset management plan across the city might be akin to building a monster that can’t be managed.

Perhaps taking one step at a time, creating a plan to manage different assets like the water and sewer infrastructure, and then bringing them all together, might be a better approach, he suggested.

But Coun. Steve Roddick suggested staying the course and going forward with the development of an overall asset management plan is worthwhile and necessary.

Braga told council many provinces have already mandated long-term asset management plans for municipalities.

The Yukon government currently requires municipalities to provide four-year management plans, she said.

There are possibly unknowns in the mix, Braga added, such as whether applying for federal gas tax funding for community projects will eventually require municipalities to support their application with an asset management plan.

In a post-meeting interview, Braga explained asset management creates a process of identifying the best use of available money.

It assists in helping to determine whether the city should put more into maintenance of an asset, or just bite the bullet and buy a new one, she explained.

She said it provides a process of identifying needs, planning to address those needs and then doing it.

Ontario, said Braga, requires all of it communities to have an asset management plan covering 20 years into the future.