Nipawin MIC 2015: Outline of My Panel Remarks

The Role of the Mayor/Councillors

Below is an outline of the notes I prepared to speak. My actual remarks touched on these themes but were not precisely as written.

This is a working statement of Council's responsibility in asset management: "Council's role is to use the budget, bylaws, and policies to protect, preserve, and promote use of all Town assets."

View from My Panel Seat. April 23, 2015

·         Communicate the story of infrastructure

     ·         Raise awareness: why this is important (condition of infrastructure, health, priority, etc)

     ·         Talk about the consequences including the possibilities, opportunities, and risks

     ·         Residents

     ·         Other levels of government

          ·         Municipal and provincial relations have to be reframed

     ·         In 2012 about 60% of municipalities had the data to address infrastructure needs

     ·         The value to the community (growth, sustainability, socio-economic diversification, etc)

          ·         What type of community are we building?

     ·         Develop an emotional connection to infrastructure (landfill/pool/lagoon etc)

          ·         How does our infrastructure support our goals?

·         The big picture

     ·         Impact or the direct benefit

     ·         Asset management of the needs of the community need to be depoliticized

     ·         Remember the goals

·         Positive about Asset Management

     ·         Price, Range, Service, Experience, Convenience

     ·         Being positive can be mostly done through the budget: increase use, decrease costs, and increase lifetime value

Maximizing Asset Use based on a report by McKinsey

·         Priorities

     ·         What level of service meets our goals?

          ·         Ask: what do we have? Condition? Worth/Value? Cost? Need to reflect social and economic goals

          ·         What type of waste water facility? Pool? etc

·         Risk mitigation

     ·         Do we have a long term financial plan to address our needs and meet our goals?

     ·         Allocating resources for raising awareness, staff development, tools, data collection, planning, and implementation

·         Culture of asset management

     ·         Capacity building of staff

          ·         This is eligible cost with gas tax agreements

          ·         FCM will be providing funding to help municipal staff to develop skills and software

     ·         All departments need to talk together to develop a common approach and determine what needs to be done to sufficiently address needs

     ·         What level of service are we going to deliver?

     ·         Operating Boards