Kelowna is in good shape when it comes to infrastructure management. That, according to Infrastructure Planning Director Randy Cleveland who presented council with an overview of the city's infrastructure condition assessment. According to Cleveland, the city controls more than $3.4 billion in infrastructure assets. That figure balloons to over $3.7 billion when the airport and parks are factored in. These infrastructure include wastewater, water, drainage, transportation and electrical systems and buildings. The most valuable assets according to Cleveland are in water, wastewater, drainage and road networks. The 2010 replacement value of the entire wastewater treatment system as an example is slightly more than $1.1 billion. Cleveland says generally, the city is in good shape an unfunded liability of about $492 million.
He says that includes $77 million in infrastructure that has come to the end of its planned service life while $420 million is stuff that is prematurely aging because it hasn't been taken care of well enough. "All of that is good when you know about it. This report is about presenting information and knowledge that says we are within reach of being able to manage the risk," says Cleveland. "To reiterate we are in good shape with the percentage of liability generally matching the value of the infrastructure. When you look at the infrastructure, if it is close to the total value of infrastructure we are keeping ourselves managed." The $3.7 billion in assets works out to about $27,000 in depreciable assets per citizen. "That's what we want to see maintained or increased over time."
Much of the city's reserves were depleted in 2009 when federal and provincial governments offered the city stimulus funds for infrastructure improvement, something Cleveland says the city was able to take advantage of because of its strong financial reserves. Councillor Robert Hobson told council that, while the report is encouraging, he is concerned that the proper systems are put into place. "My concern is not about this work which I think is great. My concern is about the policies and the systems that provide the resources that allow you to do what you want to do," says Hobson. "I think it's something council needs to pay attention to outside the budget cycle so we are not surprised when we get into budget and find out the budget is going to go up such and such. If we don't put the policies in place then future councils are not going to have the options we had."
Item 3.3 - Municipal Infrastructure Condition Assessment, Preliminary Overview.pdf (14696kb) (2010-06-10)
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