Council has authorized staff to engage an engineering consultant to prepare a new assessment of municipal roads, despite concerns from some councillors the work might be unnecessary or could be done by township staff.
At the April 12 meeting, public works director Jamie Morgan presented council with a recommendation to award the project to GM BluePlan Engineering, the only firm to respond to a request for proposals to conduct a road condition assessment study.
In a report to council, Morgan explained GM BluePlan agreed to cut $4,000 from the price and do the study for $19,245, provided the town supplies a vehicle and driver.
“It would be staff’s recommendation to provide the vehicle and driver, as historical information can be provided by our staff,” Morgan states in the report.
The report notes the 2015 capital budget included $50,000 for this study and a portion was used last year to undertake traffic counts that will be used as data for the road condition assessment.
“The remaining budget of $40,730 is more than sufficient to complete this work,” the report states.
The purpose of the study is to assist the township with continued development of its asset management plan, which has become a requirement for municipalities to receive provincial infrastructure funding. The report notes the previous road condition study was completed in 2009.
Morgan explained the township is required to submit an update to the asset management plan created in 2013, by the end of this year. The town will be engaging Watson and Associates to prepare the update, based partially on information from the new road study.
Councillor Dennis Craven noted council has been under pressure from citizens recently because “we seem to be spending a lot of money on consultants.” He asked if current staff members were capable of doing the road needs study.
“The roads study is very subjective, you need one person doing it,” Morgan explained. “I know our staff know our roads, they know the maintenance of it … the actual assessment of the road, our guys can do it.”
However he said the engineering firm could do a more consistent job and has the appropriate software to compile the information in the format required by Watson and Associates for the asset management plan update.
“We don’t’ have the software and I don’t think for the $19,000 we’d even be able to purchase it,” he pointed out.
Morgan said the study would be the basis “for big decisions on how we move forward over the next 20 years.”
In regard to the number of consultants hired by the municipality, CAO Brad McRoberts stated, “I think it’s important for the public to understand we’ve had a fairly aggressive capital works program over the last several years … we’ve got road projects planned, a municipal maintenance facility (under construction) and we’ve had a lot of changes in the municipality, so those are the kind of things that are driving the need for consulting.
“I think there’s good reason why we’ve got the number of consultants that we’ve got in place right now.”
Mayor Neil Driscoll noted the town has recently put a number of new people in senior staff positions and revamped its pay scale in an effort to attract quality employees.
“I feel we have very competent people here and I have every bit of faith in them to make these decisions, as opposed to a consultant who may know next to nothing about our municipality,” the mayor stated.
Noting the town is in the process of hiring an asset management director, councillor Lori Woodham asked, “if we already had an asset manager today in place, would we be obligated to use a consulting firm and hire out, or would I be able to rely on our existing qualified staff and our asset manager to produce that?”
“Asset management is a new area. It’s really a new job in the industry,” explained Morgan.
“Right now we don’t have the information and the data to put into the software to produce the results that we’d need, they’re old … if we had a manager, and we had the proper information and we knew the 2009 information is correct,” it might be possible to produce the study in-house, he continued.
However, Morgan added, “This is almost like starting anew … getting a base and allowing our asset manger to work with information he’s provided with. We need to get reliable data and let him work from here on in.”
Councillor Michael Martin asked, “If we feel we can work off, potentially, this study by GM BluePlan, why wouldn’t we have that same philosophy on the study that was done in 2009?”
Morgan replied, “This document is over seven years old so the roads have changed. There might have been roads that have been moved ahead (on the maintenance schedule) or have changed condition; they might have been paved.”
“You’re telling me this old report doesn’t fit into the software system and our new one will?” asked Woodham.
“Watson and Associates were very clear that there is certain information that they need from GM BluePlan, so they will direct them – ‘this is the way we want that information presented,’” said Morgan.
“Why wouldn’t Watson be able to pick up that report and take out what they need” said Woodham, referring to the 2009 document.
“The biggest thing is the information in that document is old, it’s irrelevant. They need the new information,” Morgan replied.
McRoberts noted council recently had a delegation of citizens at a meeting complaining about the condition of a road listed in “good” condition in the 2009 report.
“That road’s far from in good condition,” said McRoberts.
“This is (a) piece of our asset management and infrastructure plan. If we don’t have a really good foundation to start building our asset management plan, it will fail.”
McRoberts explained the township’s long-term financial plans are dependent on accurate information about future capital spending needs.
“It’s really a critically-important document. This is not where we want to be cheap. We really want to make a good, solid, comprehensive effort into building our asset management plan,” said McRoberts.
“Can we put accountability to this then?” asked Woodham. “We have a report sitting there, 2009 I still don’t think that’s too far away … now there wasn’t, in my opinion good planning from then to now. So how are we going to be accountable? Who’s going to be accountable?”
‘If I can be blunt, over (the) last couple of years sitting at this table it’s become very clear that our asset management plan is a joke,” said Martin.
“Is it fair to say that this is kind of ground zero again for us? This project/study is going to breathe new life into this plan?”
“That’s very accurate,” replied Morgan. “It’s a tool for me to bring to you and say this is what we need to spend on roads this year.”
“I certainly can’t speak to accountability before I came on board,” said McRoberts.
“However I can tell you that Jamie’s going to be insuring that the consultant is doing the job and doing it properly and making sure we’re not just producing a document for the sake of having a document on the shelf.”
The CAO continued, “I think back in 2013, and I guarantee we were not the only municipality that did it – a lot of them went out and cranked out an asset management plan just to be able to say they did it. Then they went ahead and applied for their funding.”
‘A great debate’
Driscoll said, “It’s been a great debate and as far as accountability, that’s why the municipality made the changes in management that we did.
“It’s great that we get all this information together, but my biggest concern is when we just went through our budget this winter and told everybody we’ve got an asset management plan, and that’s all well and good, but we can’t afford to do what it says we should.”
Driscoll continued, “I really struggle putting this money out, and it does seem like a small amount, but every year we spend a lot of dollars on information that I believe should be coming from in-house.”
Council approved the recommendation to accept the proposal from GM BluePlan, with Craven, Martin and councillor Marlene Ottens voting in favor and Woodham opposed.
