Duane Hicks
Fort Frances council will receive a presentation from BMA Management Consulting Inc. this evening regarding the town’s asset management financial plan and what needs to be done financially to prepare for the future.
In an interview Friday, Fort Frances CAO Mark McCaig explained the town is required by the Public Sector Accounting Board’s Regulation 31/50 to catalogue its tangible capital assets.
“That’s everything,” he stressed. “That’s right down to your roads, your water, your sewer, your valves, your hydrants, the chairs at the sports centre, everything.
“And try to find out when they were purchased, how much they were worth, what’s the value of them now that they’re fully depreciated,” he noted.
“This asset management plan goes one step further,” McCaig added. “It looks at the value of your assets, the age of your assets, and it gives you an idea of how you should move forward in addressing the replacement, refurbishment, renovation, whatever you want to call it, of your assets that you have out there.
“Putting money aside in a prudent manner to address things as they begin to fail, as they need to be replaced.
“We really haven’t been doing that,” McCaig admitted. “It’s been a very reactive approach over the years in terms of that fails or this breaks down, and we fix it right then.
“This is more of a prudent financial management strategy to address the inevitability of having to spend money to either extend or replace assets,” he remarked.
The plan takes a look at the town’s reserves, and has found that the town—like many other municipalities—has a “huge shortfall in funding the gap the infrastructure” like water and sewer.
“It starts talking about what we would have to do to put money aside to prudently address these things, whether it’s through taxation or building up your reserves through your operating funds, or what have you,” explained McCaig.
“But they also acknowledge in here, which is a fairly important point, that when you’re looking at financial assets like this, typically you look at a ‘book value’-type scenario.
“They also know that before you’d embark on an aggressive program of finding money to address these problems, whether it was through user fees, taxation rates, they know there would be a thorough assessment of all the assets—an asset appraisal,” he added.
This asset appraisal would take a look at the Civic Centre, for example, and determine that it theoretically should be at the end of its useful life.
But then take into account the town has done quite a bit of maintenance over the years, it has been renovated and kept up to standards, and, in fact, the asset does not have to be replaced.
“When you do that asset analysis, that’s going to help, that’s going to soften some of those areas,” McCaig said.
“This is kind of a hard, ‘book value’ look at our situation.”
The plan also includes statistics, comparing Fort Frances to Dryden, Kenora, and Thunder Bay in terms of affordability, taxes, sewer and water rates, and so on.
The in-camera portion of tonight’s meeting runs from 5:30-6:30 p.m., with the public portion scheduled to resume at 6:35.
Other business on the agenda includes:
•a report regarding a request from the Fort Frances Lakers’ fan club to waive sign bylaw 19/10;
•a report regarding repairs to the Civic Centre heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) system;
•a report regarding the adjustment to aviation fuel pump prices at the Fort Frances Airport;
•a report regarding improved safety for pedestrians at the Memorial Sports Centre entrances;
•an agreement with Lakeside Process Control Ltd. to maintain and update process control systems at water treatment and sewage treatment plants;
•a report regarding the crosswalk for mill employees at the intersection of Scott Street and Central Avenue;
•a report regarding the financial request from Safe Communities–Rainy River District;
•a Provincial Offences Act write-off request;
•a report regarding councillor orientation training;
•a purchase card expense for CAO Mark McCaig;
•a report regarding media relations;
•a per diem claim for Coun. Sharon Tibbs;
•a request from Travis and Shanna Weir re: waiver of sewer main repair costs in front of 1108 Victoria Ave. N.;
•a financial request from the Fort Frances Curling Club re: sponsorship of a luncheon for the NOCA senior provincial playdowns (Feb. 24-27).
•a request from the Evangelical Fellowship Church re: exemption of calendar parking for purposes of holding religious services;
•a bylaw to authorize the entering into of certain contracts with respect to the provision of janitorial services;
•a bylaw to approve an agreement with the Corporation of the Township of Alberton for the ongoing maintenance and repair, and future capital improvements that may be proposed, for Oakwood Road; and
•a bylaw to amend Bylaw No. 16/05 (the water system management bylaw).
