|
|
 |
About PSAB 3150 |
Beginning in 2009, Canadian municipalities will be required to conform to Public Service Accounting Board (PSAB) standard 3150, legislation that moves accounting for Tangible Capital Assets from a cash (expense) basis to an accrual (future) basis. For the first time, municipalities will need to capture data on assets like “what have we got?”, “where is it?”, “what is its expected lifespan?”, and “what was its acquisition cost?”.
While there is no question that compliance to the standard is necessary, it is not the only reason – and not even the best reason – to begin to apply asset management techniques and processes for municipalities. Better budgeting, workflow, environmental stewardship, expense management, ratepayer satisfaction, and public safety are among the benefits of true municipal asset lifecycle management.
Because of the legislative aspect of PSAB 3150, municipalities may feel forced into a long, hard, and labour intensive process to capture initial data, but the reality is that it provides a golden opportunity to transform the way data on critical infrastructure is captured, assessed and monitored, and to provide unprecedented levels of ratepayer service, public information, transparency, and budgetary justification.
The Asset Management Opportunity
Data, as it relates to tangible assets in Infrastructure, is currently most frequently stored in the Planning Department either in Tabular sources (spreadsheets) or Spatial sources (drawings and maps). Tabular sources often track only spending on a project basis (no line item detail), while Spatial sources note additions in graphic form. There is no particular standard as to the way this information is captured, and the data is not typically searchable, especially across the two data sources. Changes (through maintenance, upgrades, or dispositions, for example) are either not captured or captured manually, and, frankly, there is very little reason to do so. For non-infrastructure assets, even less tracking takes place, usually left to individual managers who use their owns systems and tools.
With the new accounting standard, it becomes imperative that municipalities first capture what tangible assets they have and the specific attributes they have, and then to continuously monitor them over their lifespan, in order to maintain the accuracy of financial reporting.
This significant effort is necessary, but could be considered a single event if it wasn’t for the fact that there are a number of outstanding benefits associated with the ongoing application of asset management best practices over the lifespan of the asset. They include:
- Environmental
- Identify the sources of environmental waste within infrastructure
- Save money by reducing or eliminating environmental waste
- Decision making control
- Increase visibility across multiple departments
- Re-utilize assets
- Standards creation
- Better deployment of assets and their maintenance
- Workflow
- Cost/time savings
- Streamlined processes
- Greater worker satisfaction
- Public Accountability
- Much more detail for council, based on solid transactional history
- Accurately track and report activity and address ratepayer concerns
- Public Safety
- More quickly identify and locate safety concerns and address them
- Rapid location of resources in crisis situations
- Better planning for emergency preparedness
- Disposition
- Superior processes to ensure destruction of private information (I.T.)
- More accurate capture of economic value at the end of the asset’s lifecycle
- Identify opportunities for re-use, redeployment, or recycling
- Better identify hazardous waste
- Minimize landfill impact
KiSP’s solution, gariston™ municipal, integrates with Municipal Dataworks, the only repository for municipal infrastructure data that is accessible for review, analysis, reporting and long term planning. Entirely web-based, gariston™ municipal provides the complete system for true municipal asset management, from mobile data capture and GPS location functionality to condition tracking and full reporting. Learn more.
* all trademarks are the property of their respective owner
|
|
|
