New Westminster is getting a grant to help it better manage civic assets.
The Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the Government of Canada recently announced more than $30 million for 50 initiatives across Canada through two programs – the Municipal Asset Management Program and the Green Municipal Fund. New Westminster has received $50,000 for asset management training through the Municipal Asset Management Program, FMC’s new five-year, $50-million asset management program that’s designed to help Canadian municipalities make informed infrastructure investments decisions based on sound asset-management practices.
Eugene Wat, the city’s manager of infrastructure planning, said New Westminster is in the second generation of its corporate asset management program. He said the city is compiling a detailed inventory of its various infrastructure and building decision tools to help inform maintenance, rehabilitation and replacement in accordance to a coordinated asset management framework.
According to Wat, the project under the municipal asset management program includes two essential steps toward implementing asset management at all levels in the city:
* Develop formal asset management training tools and programs to educate and equip asset management managers across different departments. These asset management managers become “trainers” or “champions” within their department.
* Provide computerized maintenance management system training to frontline operations staff. This will help to transition the city’s current manual/paperwork order system to an automated computerized system.
“Staff, from managers to frontline staff, across various departments play a key role in managing the city assets in their respective area. (This) work is part of an overall program to advance the city’s ongoing asset management process to build confidence and robustness in the program,” Wat said in in an email to the Record. “In short, our asset management program is maturing and we are utilizing staff input and technological advances to help us make more efficient decisions on infrastructure management. The municipal asset management program funding will help to ensure that everyone is on the same page.”
