Asset Management For Elected Officials

Building a Brave Culture for Asset Management Success - ROMA Conference 2025

Asset management is not just a legislative requirement – its essential for making systematic, evidence-based decisions that prioritize limited resources, define levels of service, and align infrastructure investments with community goals. Municipal councils play a pivotal role in balancing cost, risk, and service levels to achieve desired outcomes for their communities.

AMO’s CCBF team along with Christina Benty held a pre-conference session at ROMA 2025 that began with a summary of asset management legislative requirements and concluded with open discussions about the struggle to balance costs and desired service levels and effective communication strategies between elected officials, municipal staff, and the public.

The slides and session handout are available for further information.

Asset Management and Psychological Safety - AMO Conference 2024

Asset management is a planning tool that helps council build the future it wants for its community. It helps make logical and rational decisions that target limited resources and prioritize infrastructure investments.

But what could possibly get in the way of evidence-based decision making? Why might we not attend to the things we should attend to? And what is the most important conversation we need to have given the challenges we face?

An engaging session was held with around 100 participants that illuminated condition assessments of a different kind and explored the antidote to asset management apathy. Christina Benty, a strategist with decades of experience working with local government organizations, advocated for an optimistic, open-minded, and creative culture that enables sustainable decision-making.

The slides and session handout are available for further information.

The ASSET MANAGEMENT ADVENTURE – 2023 Spring Workshops

Whether you are an elected official or a municipal staff member, you each have a different yet critical role in managing the community’s infrastructure so that it continues to provide safe, sustainable, secure services in a seamless, cost-effective manner both now and into the future. This session will provide an overview of asset management for sustainable service delivery and examine the role of elected officials and municipal staff by exploring topics such as:

What is the role of Elected Officials in asset management?
What are the challenges to be faced and the opportunities to be explored?
How to make decisions today that will protect future generations?
How to apply a climate change lens to your decision making?
How asset management supports financial sustainability and guides your infrastructure investments?

Slides: Christina Benty - Strategic Leadership Solutions

Handout: Christina Benty - Strategic Leadership Solutions

Primer for Elected Officials

With limited financial capacity, staff resources, and increasing service expectations, planning
for future capital investments while minimizing risk exposure is challenging. And yet it is a key
responsibility of elected officials. AMO developed an Asset Management Primer for Elected Officials is developed to provide councils with a better understanding of their role in adopting a
strategic approach to determine infrastructure investment priorities. The following topics are covered,
with links to additional resources throughout this primer:

Understanding of asset management and its fundamentals;
Developing a policy that includes governance structure;
Determining service levels and engaging the community to set realistic expectations;
Anticipating emerging risks such as climate change;
Reviewing and Implementing asset management plans;
Checklist for councils to assess state of asset management in their municipalities;
Available support to build internal capacity for making progress in asset management; and
Asset management requirements in Ontario.

Creating your Sustainability Story – 2022 AMO Conference

As we go into the election, how can we frame the conversation about long term sustainability that appropriately considers service levels, corporate risks, and costs? Asset management provides a powerful framework for addressing these issues, and local councils play a critical role in facilitating an enabling environment to make progress.

This engaging session considers concerns for elected officials such as:

Besides cost, how else can we provide strategic direction to staff that appropriately considers other factors critical for our municipality’s sustainability?
How can we tell our municipality’s asset management story better in a way that will shape the future of our community?
How can we engage residents more effectively in setting service levels that are aligned with appropriate risk and financial thresholds?

Slides: Christina Benty - Strategic Leadership Solutions

UNDERSTANDING THE ROLE OF ELECTED OFFICIALS IN ASSET MANAGEMENT – 2021 AMO Conference

This facilitated panel discussion explores role of elected officials in building a culture of collaboration and coordination at their municipalities to support continuous progress in asset management.

Panelists:

Nancy Peckford – Mayor, Municipality of North Grenville
Cheryl Fort – Mayor, Township of Hornepayne
Brad Loosley – Mayor, Town of Petrolia

Opening Remarks 0:13

Asset management and service delivery 11:55

Using asset management lens for long-term planning 22:37

Building an organizational culture and relationship with staff 38:32

Ensuring sustainability of infrastructure services 48:42

Panel Discussion Summary

IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENTS FROM AN ASSET MANAGEMENT PERSPECTIVE – 2020 AMO Conference

Learn how municipal councils can use asset management as a decision-making tool during a pandemic to reassess investment priorities, manage risks and demonstrate sound stewardship of public resources.

Panelists: