Oxford compiles asset plan | News

The Town of Oxford’s new, comprehensive asset management plan has been presented to council by finance manager Ruthann Brookins.

“I feel we are at a crossroads,” Brookins said of the plan. 

From this report, the next two major projects for Oxford will be fixing Main Street and Pugwash Road and Reservoir. These will soon be done together, and will include replacing water systems.

It was realized during budget preparations when Brookins started working for the town five years ago there was no long term plan for Oxford’s assets. So the town commissioned one. 

“There was no guideline at budget time for what assets should be replaced or repaired now and what assets can wait. There was no financial plan in place to replace the aging infrastructure.” she said. 

Oxford then contracted an engineer from Atlantic Infrastructure Management (AIM) Network — a non-profit organization to help municipalities manage their assets — to facilitate this process.  The overall goal was to synthesize all aspects of Oxford’s asset maintenance to improve efficiency, as demonstrated.

 “The town needed to become more proactive instead of reactive concerning maintaining our assets. We need to spend the taxpayers’ money as effectively as possible. It’s not efficient to pave a street and then have to dig up the pavement before the end of its useful life to replace an aging water line,” she said. 

A total 90 per cent of the asset infrastructure management cohort program that Oxford participated in was funded by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, meaning the town paid $13,000.

“First, we all developed a policy and a governance for the plan. Then we analyzed our expected level of service in our towns and the acceptable level of risk that the town was willing to bear,” stated Brookins. 

“Next, the time-consuming part: the inventory was compiled, and this is all put in a computer. So it’s all on spreadsheets, maps now of all the infrastructure and buildings, underground and above.”

She then explained how the town had originally created a five-year asset management plan then, in 2021.

But since COVID-19 lockdowns caused the costs to inflate dramatically the town had to hire AIM Network once again, this time for $12,000, to create an updated plan with the new costs. 

“This plan actually became an integral part of this year’s water rate review with the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board as well, Brookins said.

Oxford also held a special public meeting where the engineer at AIM Network presented the asset management plan to the public to “help the citizens understand why their streets aren’t paved and why Main Street’s not paved right now,” according to Brookins.

Under the new asset management strategy, the town ranks maintenance needs from one to five, with one being something that can be carried out in the operational budget, and five being something that if fails, renders the town liable and insolvent .

Issues identified

Oxford has $136 million worth of assets, which is a significant amount to maintain and renew with its $4.1 million yearly operating budget. 

“And we have a full suite of municipal services. Even though we’re small, we’re still expected to provide many of the services as bigger municipalities,” she said.

Additionally, Oxford has an aging water system, with some components dating back to 1930. Since then they’ve been repaired, but they are brittle. According to the report, most of it needs replacement. 

Some 25 per cent of the town’s water lines are classified as being in very poor condition and need to be replaced as soon as possible to ensure potable water in the future. The reservoir was another piece of infrastructure identified as being past its useful life and in need of urgent replacement. 

Brookins addressed a common complaint, stating: “Our other thing that I always highlight: Main Street — very poor condition. Everybody’s complaining about it. It looks terrible. We’re not proud when people come into town. But before we pave it, it would be stupid if we didn’t replace the aging water underneath first. We have to get enough money in order to do those things.”