With Community Excellence Awards coming up (deadline to submit a nomination is May 17, 2024), we checked in with one of last year’s winners to find out how their asset management project is going, and what winning meant for their team.
“Nothing symbolizes inefficiency in local government more than when a municipality paves a road one year, only to go dig it up a year or two later to replace a water main,” said Summerland’s mayor Doug Holmes.
To avoid this, Summerland embarked on a strategic initiative to review the state of its infrastructure. They categorized information on road quality, the life span of watermains and more, which enabled staff and council to come up with a long-term financial investment plan to maintain and upgrade physical infrastructure. Importantly, it also meant Summerland could coordinate maintenance and replacement work between watermains and roads, to avoid the situation Mayor Holmes described off the top.
“The plan leads to more efficient and cost-effective infrastructure investments due to improved coordination and planning based on accurate cost, service, and risk information,” he said.
The resulting Water and Road Infrastructure Asset Management Plan integrates maps, data on the state of roads and watermains, and a suggested schedule for maintenance work and investment. The information is available to impacted departments (engineering, maintenance, communications, finance, etc.) and to Summerland residents.
The project earned them the top spot in UBCM’s Community Excellence Awards – Excellence in Asset Management category.