$2M top up for city facilities

A Kamloops council committee has put its support behind a plan to increase the city’s civic facilities maintenance budget by $2 million after initially rejecting the proposal last month.

Council members had asked to revisit the proposal — which was originally put before the committee of the whole in October — after some heard a Southern Interior Local Government Association presentation about asset management.

Some council members said the presentation provided them with additional context and they wanted the chance to reconsider.

During Tuesday’s committee of the whole meeting, council members heard their second presentation from city staff about the capital maintenance budget increase. Another recommendation asked council to consider hiring two full-time staff.

The recommendations were put forward as the City of Kamloops completes its Civic Facilities Master Plan, which evaluates the condition of civic buildings, including fire halls, and puts forward recommendations for necessary maintenance.

“It is pure asset management needs of these facilities,” said Darren Crundwell, the city’s strategic capital integration manager.

“It's replacing roofs. It's replacing windows on an appropriate timeline. It's painting, it's caulking, it's everything related to the primary functions of the buildings.”

The current capital maintenance budget has been set at $1.5 million, and a $2-million phased increase would put the new total at $3.5 million. This is to be funded by an existing asset management reserve which was approved by the previous council in 2019.

The reserve accumulates a 0.5 per cent tax revenue annually.

Kamloops Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson said he supports asset management, but he was concerned about the potential impact of vandalism on the city’s buildings.

"If we go into a building and we spend $80,000 on that building to upgrade everything and all that stuff, and then a week later, somebody comes in and vandalizes the building and damages it for $100,000, our insurance deductible is $100,000 — so we're basically doubling up what we're doing,” he said.

“In this plan, is there a plan to secure and alarm these properties?”

Ken Uzeloc, the city’s protective services director and fire chief, said based on council’s previous direction, there will be another report coming forward which will focus on security for city facilities and some other areas.

David Hallinan, the city’s corporate services director, said asset management practices and changing security processes should be thought of as separate requests.

“Security would be similar to an add-on that you would do at your own home,” Hallinan said.

“So if you were concerned there was vandalism or break-ins in the neighbourhood, you would make a decision to do that — but that wouldn't necessarily result in you not having purposefully set funds aside to replace your roof, your hot water tank, windows.”

Coun. Margot Middleton said the asset management plan “doesn’t preclude the need for additional security.”

"I don't think we can take one item here and say, ‘Well, let's not do this until after we pass and have a report for security,’” she said. “This is already needed. It doesn’t impact taxation. It just gives our our city better dollars to work with for asset management.”

Coun. Katie Neustaeter said she was struggling with the proposal to add more staff. Coun. Kelly Hall and Coun. Bill Sarai noted the ask at this time is only to have staff add the business case to the list of supplemental items that will be considered later for inclusion in the 2025 budget.

“I think the supplemental gives us that opportunity to see actually what the business case is, what the numbers are, what the financial impact is,” Sarai said.

In an 8-0 vote, the committee of the whole directed staff to create a plan for phasing in a $2 million increase for capital maintenance, and to add the staffing request business case to the list of supplemental budget items that will be considered.

The committee's decision will be put before council for a final vote at a later date.