Majority of Penetanguishene assets in good overall condition: report

Penetanguishene council praised the asset management plan that was presented to them, which stated 80 per cent of the town’s assets rank ‘fair or better’ for condition as of 2022.

Mayor Doug Rawson said the asset management plan was “a tremendous celebration for the community” in his remarks at the recent meeting of regular council.

A municipality’s core assets consist of buildings, roads and bridges, fleet vehicles, and much more. In 2015, Ontario Regulation 588/17 was introduced which mandated that each municipality review and update its asset management plan every five years to ensure infrastructure health and growth; Penetanguishene adopted an asset management policy in 2019.

An asset management plan was presented to Penetanguishene council in 2022 and adopted, labelled as Phase 2 of the regulation. At the recent council meeting, public works director Bryan Murray explained that the asset management plan met the requirements for Phase 3, identifying current levels of service along with their maintenance costs, and included updated critical asset data and revisions for core assets.

As of 2022, the overall replacement cost of Penetanguishene assets was listed at $411 million, with a high rank placement of fair or better condition for 80 per cent of those assets; the report included projected cost estimates generated from PSD Citywide.

Asset categories and conditions included: stormwater network (very good - 86%); land improvements (very good - 82%); sanitary sewer network (very good - 81%); water network (good - 74%); fleet (good - 66%); facilities (good - 64%); road network (good - 62%); and machinery and equipment (fair - 42%). 

In the listed machinery and equipment asset category, just $3.7 million in assets were ranked as very good while $5.2 were designated very poor, attributed primarily to $4.1 million in recreation and community services assets ranked as very poor as most neared the end of life for their age.

To meet the replacement and rehabilitation for the town’s assets, the report cited an average annual capital requirement of $9 million as a conservative estimate.

“We are a municipality that has a capital plan every year, estimated about $5 million,” said Murray. “The current plan… shows our funding gap of about $4 million with our current assessment data, so that will be the challenge going forward in terms of tackling that.”

A long-term financial plan was noted in the report to be prepared later this year which would help town staff analyze the funding gap further, with an upcoming report to include more feedback from council and the public to guide the municipality.

“Next year, the town will be working towards another deadline (Phase 4, due July 1, 2025) which provides a lot of the heavy lifting; a lot of decision making going forward,” said Murray. “It’ll be an asset management plan for all town assets but with proposed levels of service.”

Coun. George Vadeboncoeur along with Rawson thanked municipal staff for their efforts, remarking that the report was excellent to have and would provide context for future decisions.

“It is my understanding it’s fundamental when we’re making applications for grants from the province for infrastructure work,” added Vadeboncoeur. “Having an asset management plan that can support those grant applications is very important.”

The 2024 asset management plan can be located on the agenda page of the Town of Penetanguishene website.

Meetings of Penetanguishene council are held on the second Wednesday of each month, and can be watched live on Rogers TV cable 53 when available, or on the Rogers TV website.

Archives of council meetings are located on the Town of Penetanguishene YouTube channel.