Auditor General releases Recreation Facility Asset Management Audit Report

Today, Vancouver’s Auditor General Mike Macdonell released a report on his audit of recreation facility asset management at the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation (Park Board) and City of Vancouver (City).

The Park Board manages 24 community centres, 14 pools and eight indoor rinks, which are owned by the City, with responsibility for maintenance shared between the Park Board and City departments. The audit determined that these facilities were not effectively managed to align with strategic goals, meet service level priorities and optimize asset lifecycles.

The 46 recreation facilities included in the audit have an estimated infrastructure funding deficit of $33 million per year, which is part of the City’s significant overall infrastructure deficit of $500 million per year.

Many of the Park Board facilities’ building systems have been extended well beyond their intended useful life. As of 2022, the City’s data showed that 72% of recreation facilities were in poor or very poor condition, from an asset management perspective, based on the cost of required repairs and maintenance relative to the facility’s replacement value. Although the lower rating does not mean that facilities are unsafe, these assets generally cost more to maintain, repair or improve and are closer to requiring renewal.

The Park Board and the City aimed to improve the condition of recreation facilities so that 70-80% were in good or fair condition by 2050. However, there were no agreed-upon facility asset management investment plans to fund such a significant increase in condition.

The audit found that the City did not have a Council-approved policy or strategy, or a formalized capital asset management framework, to guide asset management planning for recreation facilities and ensure consistent alignment between community expectations, service delivery targets, and the maintenance strategies needed to support them.

The City provided building maintenance services to the Park Board guided by an agreement created in 2014, but the audit found there was no operating level agreement that defined respective Park Board and City staff responsibilities. 

The agreement also did not define accountability or reporting requirements from the City to the Park Board for its provision of asset management services. The audit found that Park Board Commissioners did not receive consolidated information on asset-related service levels, performance indicators and funding scenarios to support their responsibility to oversee recreation asset management.

Quotes

Mike Macdonell, Auditor General

“One of the key findings of this audit is that the City does not have a capital asset management framework (CAMF). Effective CAMFs ensure governments optimize service delivery and minimize operating costs over the lifetime of major assets. CAMFs also allow governments to anticipate the financial implications of major renewals and replacements, ensuring continuous service delivery over time,” Macdonell said.

“Candid and fulsome conversations are necessary about service levels and the costs associated with delivering them. The City has limited resources and will have to continue to prioritize where they will be spent and where trade-offs will be made. The implication of this reality is that if maintenance and renewal gaps are not bridged through taxpayer funding or other means, the City will have to make the difficult decision as to which assets are a priority – ones it will keep and replace – and which assets it will decommission and not replace and, by extension, which services will be discontinued. The recommendations contained in this report are intended to ensure these difficult conversations start now and that decisions are made transparently,” he said.

Macdonell concluded, “I am very pleased that the Park Board and the City have accepted all 13 of my recommendations and look forward to seeing all parties work collaboratively to bring their action plans to life.”

Contact

Mike Macdonell
Auditor General for the City of Vancouver
mike.macdonell@vancouver.ca
604-871-6211