Facilities Management

Committee Information: Annual Report

2007-2008 Annual Report

Report on Deferred Maintenance at Canadian Universities

At the October 2007 Board meeting, the Facilities Management Committee proposed to prepare a revised report on deferred maintenance, addressing concerns with previous draft versions of the report and preparing a base for the effective reporting of deferred maintenance at a national level.

That proposal included three broad guidelines for the content of the report.  Those guidelines were:

• State the impact of inaction,

• Focus on dollar value of deferred maintenance, and

• Use best available current data.

The draft report attached provides the structure and the data to meet these requirements.  It reports deferred maintenance in dollar terms, by province, where data is available.  It uses the best current information for each province and its structure allows for ready updates.  It does not discuss the impact of inaction or make other policy statements; the Committee recognizes the potential political impact of such statements and has, in the short term, chosen to separate them from the reporting of factual information because of the lack of information and/or analysis relative to the injection of some funds into infrastructure renewal by provincial governments in recent years.

The Committee believes that the report in its current form, followed by regular updates, could become a valuable tool for governments and the post-secondary community.  Additional sections, including discussion of recent provincial funding programs and their impact and a sampling of good practices in the management of deferred maintenance, are planned for future releases but are not essential to the current release of the report.

With these considerations, the committee has asked CAUBO to review the current draft report with the Board and with the AUCC to determine:

• If they agree to the publication of the report in its current form, including regular updates as new data becomes available,

• What further analysis of deferred maintenance, infrastructure funding and related issues would be of value to them, and

• What policy statements are appropriate at this time and whether they should ultimately be incorporated into the report or developed as independent items.

Chair
Darryl Boyce, Carleton University

Members

René Alarie, Université de Sherbrooke

Dave Button, University of Regina

Steve Dantzer, University of Calgary

Gary Schmeisser, Saint Mary’s University

Susan Wood, University of Alberta