2021 Budget - Asset Management

If you compare the Municipality to a house, it is inevitable that costs come up to maintain the home. The carpets, roof or windows need to be replaced, the furnace needs to be fixed, the list is never ending.   It is likely that the homeowner has some idea as to when this work may be needed and begins to plan ahead as to how to pay for the work.  At the same time, the homeowner may need a new car or wish to purchase some other item that they also need to financially plan for.  This is asset management.

Now think about how much these general maintenance and repair costs would be for the entire Municipality coupled with the replacement costs for its assets.  A major infrastructure repair or an asset replacement could cost millions of dollars and without appropriate financial planning could have a dramatic impact to debt, taxes or user fees. 

The Municipality owns and is responsible for the replacement and maintenance of many assets. A list of all the assets can be seen at the end of this article.

The goal through the annual budget process is to set monies aside into reserves like a savings account for asset management.  The purpose of this reserve or savings account is to ensure that the Municipality has the money up front to repair and replace capital assets such as infrastructure and equipment when needed without raising taxes, user fees or incurring new debt. No new debt means no additional interest costs.

​The Municipality is working on updating its’ existing Asset Management Plan which will require further discussions with Council on what work needs to be done to assets in the future and how the Municipality will pay for this work.