Municipal Asset Information System

Municipalities and the provincial government need information on municipal assets.  The provincial government needs municipal asset information to be able to plan provincial short and long-term funding for municipal infrastructure and to negotiate with the federal government for municipal infrastructure funding.  Municipalities need asset information for asset management and to meet Public Sector Accounting Board capital reporting requirements.

At the Municipal Forum in December 2006, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association (SUMA) and Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM) agreed to work together to develop a Municipal Asset Information System (MAIS) to meet provincial and municipal infrastructure information needs.  A municipal-ministry MAIS Committee is in place to develop a plan on how to obtain the necessary municipal asset information to meet municipal and provincial government needs. Representation on the MAIS Committee includes SUMA, SARM, City of Regina, City of Saskatoon, small cities (City of Prince Albert), UMAAS, RMAAS, and Municipal Affairs. The committee reports to the Municipal Forum.  A status report on the MAIS was provided to the Municipal Forum on March 25, 2008.

• To provide an information base to guide provincial decisions about amounts and scheduling of provincial spending on municipal infrastructure.  
• To establish an information base to support the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and municipalities in negotiations with the federal government for funding of municipal infrastructure.  
• To assist in setting priorities with regard to provincial funding for municipal infrastructure and in scheduling the province’s expenditures on the established priorities.   
• To assist municipalities in meeting PSAB requirements.   

The TESCO report continues to inform the work of the MAIS Committee.

To date the MAIS committee has accomplished the following: 

• A great deal of the discussion and work has focused on coordinating the upcoming PSAB capital asset reporting requirements and MAIS reporting requirements.  The committee has agreed that:
  • municipalities should be able to use the same asset inventory categories for both PSAB and MAIS reporting and asset management and that MAIS information will draw on some of the municipal information collected for PSAB and asset management;
  • MAIS reporting thresholds should be the same as PSAB reporting thresholds; and 
  • the MAIS template to collect information from municipalities will incorporate the functional categories used in the municipal financial statements, as well as the asset categories, to support PSAB asset capital reporting options.
• The committee is also reviewing municipal software applications to determine suitability for MAIS and PSAB reporting and municipal asset management.
• The committee has generally accepted the provincial interests and priority assets for the collection of MAIS, subject to some further review and discussion.  
• The committee has agreed on the format for the provincial government and local government MAIS data collection templates and agreed in principle on the type of information and the level of detail that is needed from municipalities, subject to some further review, discussion and revisions.  
  • The provincial government MAIS template will identify the aggregated information on priority assets to be provided by municipalities to the provincial government on the upcoming timing and cost of upcoming major repairs, improvements, upgrades, replacements, expansions and new infrastructure.  
  • The local government MAIS template will be a guide for municipalities that identifies the information they will need to be able to provide to the provincial government for MAIS. 
• The committee reviewed a proposal for a MAIS pilot project to test the MAIS templates.  The MAIS city members indicated that they cannot participate in the pilot until PSAB work is completed.  Some rural municipalities and smaller urban municipalities may be better prepared for PSAB and interested in participating in the pilot.

Municipal Affairs:

• MA has received approval from the provincial government to proceed with a feasibility study on the MAIS to identify possible IT software solutions.  A request for proposal for the feasibility study has been reviewed by the MAIS Committee and will soon be tendered.  It will be funded by Municipal Affairs.
• Following the feasibility study, MA will develop a detailed business case for MAIS for government review and approval.   
• MA is seeking federal infrastructure funding to support MAIS, PSAB and municipal asset management.

Outstanding Issues and Next Steps for the MAIS Committee

The following are the main outstanding issues that the MAIS Committee is currently considering:

• How to address the issue of defining the levels of service for identifying the level of infrastructure financial needs.  When municipalities are identifying financial needs, assuming different levels of service will result in some municipalities identifying minimal needs while others identify needs based on the highest standards. 
• Determine the feasibility of developing standard asset lifecycles and benchmark replacement costs for those municipalities that do not have this information as part of asset management. 
• Developing and implementing a pilot project for MAIS.  Any municipalities interested in participating in the pilot can contact Karen Lynch at Municipal Affairs at 798-3080.
• Informing municipalities of the need for MAIS and upcoming information requirements.
• Establishing a phased-in implementation plan for MAIS.  

This web page provides the following MAIS documents (see the "Related Documents" section below):

• MAIS Committee Terms of Reference and Contact Information.
• Report on a Municipal Asset Information System by TESCO Consulting. 
• MAIS Status Report to the Municipal Forum on March 25, 2008.