Maintenance of municipal buildings | “We are bad,” admits the mayor of Saint-Lambert

Ineffective monitoring of construction sites, municipal buildings in a “critical” state without a maintenance plan, lack of information on the condition of vehicles: Saint-Lambert is navigating the management of its assets, worries a recent devastating report . Even its mayor admits: “We are bad and we need to improve. »

“The City has not developed policies, procedures, directives or orientations to ensure effective asset management,” writes the firm Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton in a report presented last Monday to the municipal council, at the request of the administration of Pascale Mongrain.

Result: the information on many municipal buildings is “not complete” and has “not been updated in recent years,” we read in this document.

Five major City facilities, namely the city hall, the multifunctional center, the Desaulniers house, the municipal workshops and the golf club chalet, are also in “critical” condition and would require investments of more than 10 million over five years, alone. However, “there is no monitoring of the work carried out and to be carried out”, notes the report.

The firm estimates that more than 4.8 million should be invested in the next year alone, including 4.2 million in “urgent works”. However, in the last five years, Saint-Lambert has only invested 3 million in its real estate assets. This is barely 5% of its capital investments.

The picture is hardly more rosy for its vehicle fleet, the monitoring of which “is mainly done through an Excel file, despite the fact that the City has maintenance software”, deplore the Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton experts.

Recommendations are suggested, including having an asset management policy, but also creating more “rigorous” control and surveillance mechanisms. Employees should also be further trained in available inventory technologies.

” It’s not going well “

The mayor of Saint-Lambert, Pascale Mongrain, does not hide that the situation is very problematic. “We know that things are not going well, we know that the City has historically not managed its real estate assets or its rolling stock well. I tell you: we are bad and we have to improve,” she says.

“We are not at all surprised by this report. Just our city hall, for example, it has suffered damage and bad weather for about 20 years. The City did nothing, we were forced to close it and relocate it to four different locations. This is proof that the City did not manage its assets,” adds M.^me Mongrain, who however believes that the situation is not unique to Saint-Lambert.

The elected official affirms that her administration has been thinking about selling “certain assets” for a while. “We have financial issues that do not allow us to invest as we would like to maintain our buildings. And the workforce is not there to take care of it adequately too,” she says.

She promises to tackle it in the coming months with her new general director, François Pépin.

As for rolling stock, the problem is that the City “does not have cumulative data in an organized way,” notes the mayor. “We have software, but it is not used adequately by employees, who are overwhelmed and who are always putting out fires. We will train them and make sure that changes. […] In short, within a year and a half and the end of my mandate, we will see a difference,” she promises.

Repeated requests

In Saint-Lambert, elected officials, including District 5 municipal councilor Loïc Blancquaert and District 8 councilor Stéphanie Verreault, have been asking the City to adopt an asset management strategy for some time. “It has still not been done, but now, all this will put additional pressure,” says Mr. Blancquaert.

The City must, according to him, understand “that in the long term, it will always be profitable to maintain [ses] active on a continuous basis. “This avoids a situation where we have to invest enormous sums either to bring them up to standard or to build new ones. »

That said, “almost all levels of government have let certain things go” in recent years, recalls Mr. Blancquaert. “Asset maintenance is not something glamorous, there are no ribbons to cut, so it is never among the top priorities of administrations, which are more often in reaction mode. It’s something that’s easily forgettable,” he analyzes.