Sammamish Plateau Waters Tammy Whipple hopes more companies find the courage to implement long-term financial plans to look after the infrastructure on which we all depend Tammy Whipple Tammy Whipple has a Masters degree in public administration and the IAM Diploma with Distinction, and she is a Project Management Professional and Certified Reliability Leader. She has managed the asset management programme for a water and sewer special purpose district for eight years and leads special projects including performance/business metrics and project management enrichment, along with a variety of other projects for finance, general management, operations and maintenance, and engineering services. She also manages the districts Technology and Business Intelligence Department and is a member of the IAM USA Chapter Executive Committee. To achieve financial sustainability, organisations need to extend their financial models out to cover the useful life of every asset and include the full cost of service P eople and businesses around the world depend on many types of assets every day. Yet the emphasis to fund the long-term operation, maintenance and eventual replacement of these assets is not always a priority. My thoughts today are on some of the basic infrastructure assets on which we depend, including roads and bridges, rail, electricity, water, sewer and natural gas. These basic infrastructure assets typically have long lives and are expensive to rehabilitate or replace. For many stewards of these assets, the focus for funding operations, maintenance and replacement is shorter term, five to 10 years, maybe looking forwards 20 to 30 years. The true or full cost of service is rarely recognised and funded for these pertinent infrastructure assets. The full cost of service includes operating, maintaining, rehabilitating, replacing and disposing of each asset. To achieve financial sustainability, organisations need to extend their financial models out to cover the useful life of every asset and include the full cost of service. Once identified, organisations need to create and implement funding strategies to meet current and future financial needs. By not recognising and funding or charging the full cost of service for our infrastructure, we have created a looming liability with inadequate financial reserves. By not adequately funding infrastructure we are doing society an injustice. Creating a world that sometime in the future will see deteriorated and crumbling systems and infrastructure worse than we have ever seen. I hope we can all stop taking for granted the assets on which we depend and find the courage to implement long-term management and funding structures that will support sustainable and reliable infrastructure. Embracing asset management is an excellent first step on this journey. I work for a water and sewer utility that has embraced and developed an asset management programme and culture to ensure long-term sustainability of our customers infrastructure. One piece of the framework established is funding future rehabilitation and replacement. Our long-term rate model covers 100 years and seeks to balance rate stability while recognising the need to fund significant future capital assets. We update our rate model annually, recognising changes in operations and maintenance; asset replacement costs, including future replacement requirements for new assets added to the districts inventory; and current capital projects. In addition, we review other factors that may affect our customer rates, such as customer growth, to ensure we are charging the full cost of service while smoothing annual rate adjustments. Our rate model provides the basis to project future capital replacement needs and costs. This establishes a reserve funding strategy based on each generation of customers paying for their current use of assets. By recognising the value assets provide, we can create the foundation to ensure systems and assets are maintained, operated and funded to meet current needs, and those into the future. Without assets we all fail. I hope we can all find the courage to implement long-term management and funding structures that support sustainable and reliable infrastructure.