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Evolving Asset Management Systems with Russ Matthys, PE and John Gorder, PE
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Ever wondered how cities manage their assets and infrastructure? Join us as we sit down with John Gorder and Russ Matthys from the City of Egan, two award-winning engineers, who have played an instrumental role in the city's growth and management. Throughout our discussion, we'll learn about the fascinating journey of Eagan's pavement management program, which started in the 1990s, and how the city has since evolved its asset management systems beyond just pavement.
Further Resources
City of Eagan Public Works CIP, Pavement Management Program, & other info
Public Works Documents (cityofeagan.com)
Eagan Wins with Technology (cityofeagan.com)
Presentation on Eagan’s Use of Asset Management to Create Eagan Infrastructure Improvements
Microsoft PowerPoint - Mn IAM Presentation Eagan Infrastructure 13DEC2022 (theiam.org)
Metropolitan Council Environmental Services Inflow and Infiltration Grant program
Available Funding/Grants - Metropolitan Council (metrocouncil.org)
GPS Transponder for Smart Phones
https://eos-gnss.com/
Asset Management Journey in Egan
Marc CulverWelcome to the Public Works Nerds Podcast with Mark and Mike .
Mike SpackToday we're here with John Gorder and Russ Mathis from the City of Egan . John , could you start us out just telling a little bit about your background ?
John GorderAll right . Thanks , mike , glad to be here . Graduated from North Dakota State University a long time ago , Too many bison around here , Oh yeah . Started working with the BonusDroh consulting in 1988 , seven years there , moved on to the City of Egan as a design development engineer , transitioned into the assistant city engineer position and then into the city engineer position about 11 years ago . Been with the city 28 years or so and it's been a great place to work and happy to be there , okay .
Marc CulverRuss , a little bit about your background . Sure , mike and Mark as well . Thanks for having us . It's fun to be here , so I'm a Jack Rabbit once I go to the state .
Russ MatthysWow Yeah , johnny , and I have One of the rare ones .
John GorderYeah , we could talk football this year We have some vests .
Marc CulverYeah , it's been a long time . So I actually started out in Los Angeles . I worked at Los Angeles County Public Works . There's like a core of about half a dozen of us in the metro area that did similarly . That all came back to Minnesota So I only worked there for a year , worked for a couple of consulting firms out there as well , But for a short period of time .
Marc CulverWithin three years I was back in Minnesota , fell in love with the Minnesota girl and she got me back to Minnesota , So worked for a variety of cities at that point . Then I worked for Farmington , I worked for Maplewood And then I found my way to Egan , thankfully been there about 26 years . I started originally as a city engineer And then 11 years ago , similar to John's story became a Public Works director . So it's been a fun transition . Egan's just been a wonderful place to be Lots of opportunities , A lot of its location , location , location But it's the people there too has been a big part of it . So thankful that we've been able to be there and that I've had an awesome partner like Johnny for such a long time .
Speaker 4Yeah , and I just want to say and I cut you off there , mike but when I was thinking about when we're starting this up and we're thinking about guests , i thought , hey , let's early on in this podcast journey , let's bring in a couple of award-winning engineers . And I want to call that out . I think in the last 12 months the City of Egan's been pretty well represented in that , with Russ you winning the director of the year for the local APWH chapter And John you winning the engineer of the year for our City Engineers Association of Minnesota , and so I just wanted to highlight that . Congratulations to both of you , very well deserved . Egan's always been on the forefront of things and just been really well managed and run community as I look at it from the outside , and there's a lot of really interesting stuff happening at Egan with the Vikings Training facility there now and just a lot of good development and such down there .
Mike SpackFor our listeners outside of Minnesota . Can you put Egan in a little context ?
Marc CulverSure , Egan's in Southeast Metro . It's across the river from the airport . So when I talk about location , location , location , that's a big part of it . And then the freeway system . We've got 494 in our north boundary . 35e cuts through diagonally through Egan and Cedar Avenue freeway on the west side , So it's a northern part of Dakota County right on the Minnesota River . What's the population ? The population is about 68,000 right now And I would say our workforce is well , it was low 60s . It's down maybe about 55,000 during the day . So there's a lot of the 68,000 that work in Egan , but I would say we get up 100,000 plus folks driving in and through Egan every day , Not counting all the people working from home .
Speaker 4Exactly , and what's the area square area of 32 ?
John GorderYeah , 32 square miles And , as you mentioned , Mark , really a lot of mix of commercial and residential development and the opportunity to work on a lot of unique and special projects and developments through the years . With the outlet mall redevelopment , the Viking lakes , a few large other commercial retail developments Makes it fun and interesting to go to work every day and including the people that we work with .
Mike SpackYeah , and still growing .
John GorderStill growing and facing some redevelopment challenges with some of our corporate campuses as well , and that'll play into some of our asset management discussion later on .
Speaker 4And then , just before we get into the asset management topic and we just touch on the size of your public works department , the workforce , how many guys you have , and that just so people can kind of get an idea of the size of the department .
Marc CulverYeah , so in public works . So public works consists of engineering . It consists of streets and fleet and then utilities , which is water , sanitary sewer and storm sewer , and then water quality or surface water water resources . We do have a lot of GIS folks within the mix there Good . So for three and a half years we've had an asset management coordinator , So about 55 , 60 total . Great , and then including seasonals we get up to 75 .
Mike SpackSo Okay , well , today we wanted to kind of dive into asset management . It's a huge topic . I assume we're going to have several episodes on asset management , but today we wanted to cover a little bit the bigger picture and the journey you've been on at Eagan . You've been on the forefront and been doing it a long time , so kind of can you tell us you've both been working on it for so long . Kind of , tell us that journey , what does that 25-year journey look like ?
Speaker 4Yeah , and what is asset management meant for you guys over the course of that journey ?
Marc CulverOkay , i guess I'll start and I'm going to hand it off to John pretty quick . But asset management is basically addressing or taking care of all the stuff that you have , and what we try and do is try and get the biggest bang for a buck out of the assets the public assets that we're responsible for , and so our journey really started in the pavement realm with our roads , and so I'll let John address kind of the history of that .
Pavement Management and Asset Management Program
John GorderYeah , we have to thank our predecessors at the city , namely , you know , tom Colbert , our former public works director , who had the foresight to start an asset management program specifically for the pavement management in the city . That started back in 1990 .
John GorderYou know he had the wherewithal to think ahead on how we're going to manage this large asset that developed in the 80s and 90s . You know all the pavement and the development that was essentially given to us through development And it's really been a good process through the years We've essentially evolved into a mill and overlay program throughout our streets . You know we haven't gotten to the reconstruct portion yet but that's where it all started was that initial pavement management program , working with ICON and creating our CIP for street improvements through the years .
Speaker 4So as a part of the ICON program , did you have that company come out into the pavement surveys and that Yeah .
John GorderRight , yeah , they initially provided the ratings and the software to manage the pavement And we've since taken it on to do the ratings through the years and we rate a third of the city every year and every street in the five-year CIP every year as well .
Speaker 4How do you do that ? Just 30 seconds . How do you do the rating ?
John GorderYeah , the ratings is still a visual survey . We haven't morphed into more of a AI or digital camera or video type of thing , yeah , drive-through . We have a technician from the street's department that rates the pavement one-third every year and does a great job and creates a great system .
Speaker 4Good What's ?
John Gorderyour average PCI . Our goal average PCI is 75 or above , not off the brush .
Marc CulverJohnny , i just got this . Oh , are we switching 72.8 , which is an enhancement from last year ? We were 71.4 , i think , so we're getting closer to 75 . Okay .
Speaker 4When do you think you'll hit your goal ?
Marc CulverWell , we were above our goal for much of our program , but I don't know when we went down . I could check We're finishing up our CIP right now . In fact I got to finish my memo today , so I don't know . We'll see . It's interesting because of the size of our program and just the difference our improvements make . I was surprised that we jumped a little over a point on this past year or so . But I'll be very honest with you 75 isn't necessarily the . I don't know that 75 is the perfect number , right is that really the right answer ?
Marc CulverYeah , we don't know that it is .
Speaker 4I mean , maybe 70 is the right answer , because at 72 , you probably think your streets are pretty , pretty condition . The really important thing is what your residents think and your council Yeah .
Marc CulverAnd to that point , mark , i'll give us a quick little shout out . But this winter was an interesting winter , and a lot of folks talked a lot about road conditions this spring , and I would tell you that Egan's road conditions were pretty darn good , and so I use that as my best judgment or guide Whether or not we hit 75 .
John GorderAnd a little detail on that too . We're facing a lot of challenges on our collector roadways . We used to think we'd be able to get 20 years out of a mill in Old Berle , but we're experiencing that to meet that condition index we're likely going to more of a 15-year cycle on those overlays .
Speaker 4I have a lot more questions I would love to explore about pavement management and seal codes and overlays and all that , but let's get back to the asset management component . So you started with pavements . It's really your foray into a detailed asset management system , and then how did that evolve ?
Marc CulverWell , we've been doing it for 33 years now And as I became public work structure 11 years ago , I started to see a lot more than just the street projects . I mean , from the engineering perspective , that was a lot of what I focused on And for the most part , the way we I don't remember if we did this before or not , but the street improvements would kind of lead . The CIP , I mean our capital improvement plan started with the pavement management program And then also our asset policy started at the same time too . So there was a lot of big things that happened as a result of the pavement management program getting started . So I always felt pretty good about the pavement management program And oftentimes it's like well , we got to do something like this for the utilities as well . And it's pretty obvious Pavements easy , You can walk it , You can touch it , You can feel it .
Speaker 4Well , the lifespan is shorter on the pavement than a water man or sewer too .
Marc CulverAbsolutely . Now we have been doing a pretty good job in our history on televising our sanitary sewers And so I felt pretty good about our ability to rate the conditions of the sanitary sewer pipes . We could do that with storm sewer , we weren't at the point . Water man is a whole different , other story . But yeah , the more success and the support of our council .
Marc CulverOur council is so supportive of our pavement management program . They've seen the success of it . I mean , we started out none of them were on the council 30 years ago But a lot of them have been on the council for 20 plus years And so they've seen that when we have public hearings , because we do special assessments , we don't have very many people show up And oftentimes I mean I'm just doing memos this morning before I came here on public hearings And it was like nobody showed up for this neighborhood meeting . We've had no objections to these assessments And I'm talking about 200 , 300 , 600 people involved in these various projects And to them , that's just for an elected official And you don't have anybody in front of you yelling at you because things are too expensive or you did something wrong And that's huge . And so they've just really bought into and appropriately so bought into the success of the pavement management program .
Marc CulverAnd so it's easy to go take something like that that they're familiar with and say , hey , we want to do the same thing with utilities . And the thing that I started realizing with utilities is we were fairly new And to your point that you made early remark , utilities , hopefully , are going to last a lot longer than the streets are , but eventually you're going to have to do something , and no different than pavement . Well , maybe something should be maintaining it . And we've had a lining program . I mean , with the Met Council's encouragement , with I&I , we've always had a pretty good lining program . We've probably quadrupled the amount of mileage that we've lined pipes now . We started out with maybe half a mile , Now we're up to about two miles a year of typically still clay pipe .
Speaker 4Even in Eagan we've got some clay pipe And just I'm just going to pause button there , just for our national listeners . So our MPO , the Metropolitan Council here , also manages the wastewater treatment plants for the metro area And so they actually have a really good , well-funded , generally through bonding dollars program to help fund lining sewers to get rid of that inflow and infiltration issue , which then saves them a lot of money on treating that water . So I just wanted to touch on that real quick for those that were listening nationally .
Marc CulverYeah , thanks , mark , and if you are a local community in the Twin Cities area and you haven't utilize the funding that the Met Council provides for those types of projects , do it . I mean and they're very helpful . My council staff is wonderful to work with , so my crew going to say something .
Mike SpackYeah , to circle back to talking about your city council and not much opposition of any to these neighborhood mill and overlay projects . I just want to put a kind of exclamation point . As I understand it , It's because this has been a 30-year program and policy and data-driven and well-documented and no surprises . Is that why you think there's just nobody showing up to these public hearings ?
Marc CulverAbsolutely OK . Yep , i think you nailed it on the head . So we'll have 1,000 to 1,500 properties typically assessed on a yearly basis with our pavement management program right now . And if we have three to six people , what's the average assessment ? Sure , the average assessment . We assess half the cost of the bituminous . So if there's any curb improvements or replacement , if there's any utility work , we don't assess for any of that . If they have a typically in commercial industrial , if they have a brand new concrete apron , which we kind of have a standard for in town , they have to pay 100% of those costs . But typically for your residential single family assessment , john , we're looking at anywhere from 750 to 1,500 , maybe $2,000 . Oh wow , dollars , right .
Speaker 4Wow .
John GorderYeah .
Speaker 4So that's , i might be moving to EK . Wow , it's low .
John GorderAnd our council has supported city subsidizing at least a portion of it , but they like to have the assessment still in the game .
Marc CulverSo folks have some buy-in and the whole thing . So then there's our go ahead . John , What are you going to ?
John Gordersay . I'm just going to talk about how the utilities asset management and water resources asset management kind of evolved out of the out of the pavement management program too . It was a challenge that Tom Colbert and Russ
Planning for Infrastructure Replacement Costs
John Gorderput to us . When we do go into a neighborhood on a pavement management , street improvement project , look holistically at all the infrastructure in the neighborhood and say the challenge is just to , ok , fix everything for the next 20 years So we don't have to go back into a neighborhood two , three , 10 years later , even to impact that neighborhood .
Marc CulverYeah , that's a different point , john , and that's all about the customer impact , and people don't care what the construction I mean . People care , but people aren't concerned about what the specific activities are that the construction are doing . They just know it impacts them . So if we could combine all the activities that need to be done at one time , hallelujah , that's fewer birthday parties or weddings or graduation parties .
Speaker 4Yeah , exactly that you're impacting .
Marc CulverSo , and even from a business perspective and I think we've all learned this , but I did early on and I continue to see it time and time again no matter how careful we are with construction work going on in business , commercial areas , and even if we leave those streets open , but there's still construction activity , there's an impact . There's an impact on all those businesses and we're trying to limit that . So , as far as with the utility stuff , it's really I guess we kind of went into it not necessarily knowing what . They're always out there to help us , to guide us through setting up a program , and we've definitely had the pavement management program as a great example , but it's different and it's underground and it's out of sight .
Marc CulverSo and even on the televising that doesn't necessarily tell you everything . So and you're not televising WaterMain And we're not televising WaterMain , you know so . And then we're not televising Storm Surgery . So I was like , okay , what do we do with that ? And yet you know , we've had , you know , and it's not just we knew that age was coming . So I think the big motivator for me was our utility superintendent , john Eaton , went and did a hundred year projection , a hundred year forecast on what was going to be the replacement needs . So he just took national standards for reinforced concrete pipe , polyvinyl chloride in LPVC and then ductile iron pipe for WaterMain , because those are the main characters when it comes to our utilities And he projected out , you know , a standard life expectancy . And there was this huge tidal wave that was , you know , of costs that we were anticipating within that hundred year period , and so probably within like a pretty narrow band too , And that's for context because Egan is a fast growing suburb .
Mike Spackover our careers has quadrupled . I don't know what the rate of growth , but a lot of your infrastructure was built in a pretty small window of time And all that's going to come due at the same time .
Marc CulverAbsolutely , mike . And so I would say you know the two big things . We had two bridges across the Minnesota River that were constructed and completed , are upgraded . You know , about the same time , when , from a two-lane see your Avenue freeway to a six-lane , you know . And then 494 , you know the interstate across Minnesota River as well , both early 80s , 83-ish , and so mid-80s through mid to late 90s . Yeah , that's where we had a lot of growth going on .
Marc CulverAnd so you know to your point , or the point you're making is , yeah , it's a fairly narrow band of all these replacements that need to happen or are probably likely are going to need to happen . And so and I've been sharing this a lot more and this has been more of a revelation lately but you know , when you think about it , for cities , most of the infrastructure that we have was paid for by a developer , you know , and those developers got reimbursed by the homeowners . I want to be clear about that . But it wasn't the city that was financing those original assets . You know public assets , and so we didn't really make a plan to do anything with them .
Marc CulverYou know , for the pavement management program , that was revolutionary thinking . You know , for Tom Colbert and others , you know , back in the late 80s and 1990 when they implemented it . So the reality is is that it's all going to have to be replaced And most of us aren't planning for that replacement . And so John did this projection for 100 years and I said we got to take this to the council , you know , and it's like 100 years is going to be a little bit big to swallow . Let's get it down to 50 , you know years And that's more of a realistic approach . I mean , you know , most of us hopefully not all of us are going to be alive in 50 years , but at least there's going to be you know there's folks that we're having conversations with that .
Marc CulverOkay , yeah , 50 years , i can see that . So when we did that , you know , again , we just used the standard life expectancies . You know it captured that big tsunami , you know that was on its way , and so that when we look at us and I'm going to use another city's number , but I have not specifically done all the math but roughly I calculate that we've got about a billion dollars worth of public infrastructure When you look at all our underground pipes and stuff , our facilities or streets and stuff like that . So when I you know , when I suggested to the council that , hey , if we can do anything to try and get a longer life or a better bang for our tax dollars or utility rates to address a billion dollars worth of stuff , even if I can make 1% of a difference , that's huge , you know . And so that was , you know . So that was easy buy and people can see that . Do that math pretty quick .
Marc CulverSo we went and did this evaluation and we did what projection ? we worked with a consultant that helped us And so we had projections for what costs we're going to be And I've I've got some numbers , but you know we were looking at based on if we would continue our current utility rates and that's how we finance for the most part now , because we don't have developers coming in as much But if we continued our current utility rates quickly , within the next 10 years , i think we were going to have costs that were going to be maybe four or five times what the revenue was we were bringing in with our utility rates . Now I think our , our projections were maybe a little conservative , you know , but whether it's 10 years or whether it's 20 years , you know . And then , as you carry that out to the end of the 50 years , i mean we were looking at significant gap between what we were going to need for making all those replacements or paying for all those replacements of what we were actually generating . And so they were . They were quick to appreciate that .
Marc CulverAnd then we hired a separate or we worked with our finance folks And and I said , you know , our engineers can , can do the financial evaluation , but I want you guys , you know , and I honestly feel we're doing all this for our finance , financial purposes is all about the financial health of the community . And so our finance folks selected their own consultant and somebody this council was familiar with , and so they reviewed what we did . And then they , they did a utility rate study and they proposed a significant increase in our utility rates . But they also proposed infrastructure fee And so they wanted to I guess not that that didn't increase a specific you know water rate or sewer rate or storm sewer rate as much , because they they , i guess , offset it a little bit with this infrastructure fee .
Marc CulverAnd the infrastructure fee was kind of a replacement for the developers you know , contributions of the stuff was the way it was seen and kind of more of a almost like the , maybe a little bit like for our streets . We have a major street fund And we talked about the special assessments , whatever's not assessed . The major street fund covers that . So I think the infrastructure fee kind of acts in essence as a as a community .
Mike SpackSo who pays that infrastructure fee ? Is that new developments charged at the time of construction , or is that every resident is paying an annual fee ?
Marc CulverThat's every resident , so that's a new fee on their utility bill . So they are paying it . But it's just , it's designated It can be used for water , sanitary sewer or storm sewer .
Speaker 4Okay , okay , but not streets , not street No .
Mike SpackThat's a different conversation .
Speaker 4That's a different person .
Mike SpackHey everyone , i want to take a moment to thank our sponsors , bolton and Mink , who are producing this podcast for us .
Russ MatthysAt Bolton and Mink , we believe all people should live in a safe , sustainable and beautiful community . We promise every client two things We'll work hard for you and we'll do a good job . We take a personal interest in the work being done around us And , at the end of the day , we're real people offering real solutions .
Mike SpackYou have pavement management , you have the utilities , you're building up asset management . Is it the same software package ? How are you logging all of this data ? What's the mechanism here And maybe how has that evolved ?
Marc CulverWell , that's a great question
Asset Management and GIS Utilization
Marc Culver. So when I got the budget team and the previous city administrator to approve a new asset management coordinator , it was tied together with asset management software And I threw a number out . There There's all kinds of opportunities And we had been using a software for a number of years , or at least 10 years with our GIS folks , And I'll talk more about GIS . We've had GIS going on in EGAN for 27 years . We still have the same person who started with our GIS as our GIS coordinator for the city Awesome .
John GorderGive a shout out to our… .
Marc CulverYeah , my name is Jimmy . Madio is a superstar and she's won awards like John as well , and statewide awards , and they've even been recognized by Esri internationally . But we've got… Okay , i'll put up our GIS team against anybody .
Speaker 4I might get some challenges on that . Let's go , i'll take them . They're ready , they can handle it .
Marc CulverSo where was I going with this ? Help me out , mike .
Speaker 4So you had the idea , you had the asset management . You had the coordinator position approved . You knew it was tied to the software .
Marc CulverThank you So where do we go ? Thank you , Mark . So but I didn't have a name necessarily We had tried this . We had utilized a previous GIS software that worked together with Esri , you know , with ARTCAD and ARTMAP and all that , And it worked , but we didn't utilize the full package of it , And so one of the things I did when I became director was like we're paying how much a year for this ? I think it was a $50,000 annual fee . What are we doing with it ? You know , and we were doing a little bit of work order , management And that was it ?
Marc CulverI mean , and this software was powerful . I mean it was a powerful software but we weren't utilizing it , and so I said we got to stop until we figure out what we're doing . So part of the deal with when I offered up the asset management coordinator and the software to go along with it was to evaluate . That asset management coordinator was going to evaluate software , including the one we had gotten rid of and whatever else was out there , and I was done looking . I mean I'd gone to all the conferences and you know John's going .
Marc CulverCome on , russ , let's go , we got to do something else I walk around and talk to asset management people , but so that's one of the things she did I think probably is a little after she'd been here a full year And we had a team that was represented by folks from multiple departments in the city And I was actively involved with that And we actually we were I was telling John on the way here we literally had the money in the outstretched palm of this software provider is a different one And we pulled it back because we didn't . We just didn't think that was in our best interest to do , and what we did is we went with no software , no new software .
John GorderThat consultant couldn't provide a comprehensive one size fits all , not perfectly for us .
Russ MatthysAnd I think that's a you know , and if you guys have worked , with software .
Marc CulverYou know if you guys have worked with software vendors before . When it gets down to it , everybody's who's created something has created it based on their own experience and what they work with , or some are one other city's experience .
Speaker 4Yeah , right .
Marc CulverYou know and so you know , whereas I think we do public works there , everybody else is like , talk to folks in the cities . There's maybe other two other communities in the Twin Cities that are really close comparison to how we do public works . And you know , we all think what we do is the way it's done everywhere , but it's not necessarily So . We kind of found that with the software too , and it's like I like what this does in this area , but man , i don't like this , this part of it . So , and the other thing that we had done and we had made this decision and I literally made this decision , i don't know five years beforehand , and it was like we have this superstar GIS team and they started doing utilizing Esri , and Esri again was ArcMap , arccat , all that stuff . Every really opened their doors and said here's our program . We're not going to charge you a bunch of added fees for doing extra tag on things . You guys , whatever you can do with everything we have , you do it . Share with us what you're doing . Let's have this communication and this flow of information back and forth . But that's what our staff started doing . They started fully utilizing Esri . They did hire some consultants to help them really understood Esri to help us even develop it more . But they started doing stuff and working with our first line , our frontline folks , and said what are you comfortable with working ? What works best for you ? What do you like ? And I said you know what ? this is going to be a problem when we decide to actually buy a software program , because it's not going to be just like what our folks like . But okay , i'm okay with right now , let's do this .
Marc CulverAnd so we started doing that . Everybody was buying into it , we were getting great information and it was heavily utilized . So we were going from everything being written down on paper and when someone goes out to replace a water meter or do an INI inspection and stuff like that to all of a sudden it was all being done on their smartphone , right , and we had pictures on there . Well , here's what a pressure reducing valve should look like , and tied to this person's irrigation system or whatever . And they would say , yep , it's that one , and they'd click on that and then they'd write notes on there if there was something different .
Marc CulverAnd all of a sudden we're getting rid of a thousand pages of paper and everything's electronic . And everybody was buying into it and they really liked it and they saw the benefits of it . So that's really weighed heavily into our final decision to not go with an asset management software program because of what our folks were doing internally and they continue to do things like that internally And so our asset management program is Esri . That's our software and the people and the consultants that we use with it And that's kind of where we're going .
Marc CulverAnd asset management I'm the asset management coordinator , our coordinator committee chair for the American Public Works Association Minnesota chapter , and what we're doing , what our message is is hey , we all do asset management but it's all whether you call it that or not , Yeah exactly , and whether you're making the choices in your head or you're writing them down on a piece of paper , or maybe you use an Excel as a spreadsheet , or maybe you got a fancy software program that works well for you And some people do , we're all doing it in different ways . I mean , that's what we do as public works . We manage assets , and so what we're trying to do is just encourage people to manage a little bit better , make it a little bit more efficient .
Mike SpackSo are you able to get analytics out of this way you're going about it , or is this more of just a database that then when you have questions , you're dipping your toes into the database , or has your team been able to build any kind of dashboards or templates that help inform your CIP and things like that ?
Marc CulverSo we've been doing the Alvea analytical aspects are loud and clear with the streets And that's easy . We want to try and get there to utilities , but where we're at for water main , where's our water main breaks . I mean , that's what we're doing And that's , i think , most people reactionary .
Speaker 4That's how they do it . What's the pipe material , how old is it and where the water main ?
Marc CulverExactly And so . But what we're doing now and this is like current right now , today we've got a neighborhood that I think the utilities were put in 1965 to 1969 . So they're coming up on some of their life expectancies And so we are going to go into that neighborhood this summer . We're going to televise all the sanitary sewer . We've done it in the past but we're going to televise it current . Now , this summer we're going to televise all our storm sewer , which has never been done , and then we're going to dig up pothole portions of our water main and as well as some of our structures or manhole structures , and catch basins and stuff like that , and we're going to do an evaluation and we're going to work with the consultant and try and do an evaluation on where that pipe is , and then we're going to try and use that then as okay . Well , here's what the standards say , but here's what our experience is in this one neighborhood .
Speaker 4And you can take into account soil conditions in the center .
Marc CulverThe other two .
Speaker 4But , yeah , that allows you to do that kind of your own personal lifespan . Of those , the actual , i can't .
Marc CulverI'm blanking on that word , the EGID life span or whatever , but that's where you talk about the performance .
Speaker 4What's the actual performance of the pipe ?
Mike SpackPut that 1% on a billion dollar asset , being able to tune in your localized conditions . That's where you can get that 1% or 2% , versus just going off the national standards . Yeah .
John GorderI think it's important . We need to share that information with people locally and nationally , because their situation might be similar as well . Just to give another data point for folks as they're evaluating there .
Mike SpackYeah , i want throughout the industry that we have these big giant reams of data and standards . but you dig back , you dig back , you dig back and you realize how small of a data sample all of these standards are based on and how sometimes they're 30 , 40 years old too Just a best guess from industry people too .
Speaker 4So getting back to , it's really interesting that you guys decided that you're going to kind of do your own custom asset management system , which is great and you've got the staff to do that And obviously not every agency is going to have that The resources or the staff to do that . But getting back to the cost side of it , if you were spending and I would say , given what we were doing in Roseville and what I saw there , depending on the system you bought , that $50,000 to $60,000 number is about right for an annual maintenance contract , But let's say you were rather than spending $50,000 to $60,000 on a software platform , what additional costs do you think you have doing your own personal that you wouldn't have had if you had a software system ?
Marc CulverWell , we are spending about $5,000 to $10,000 a year for the consultant assistance that we're getting .
Marc CulverSo , that's probably not something I would get support for if we bought a software program . Staff time we are and I don't necessarily have a number on that , but staff time we've got staffs doing a lot more . I mean , they're in essence being the software creators oftentimes . So now I think there's some benefit to that in ways as well , but there is a cost to that .
GIS Asset Management Costs and Implementation
Marc CulverWe do have , like we do as part of it , like oftentimes , the counties will have the aerial topo map . That's got the property identity information and stuff .
Marc CulverWe do our own , but it's a lot more . We got all the utility information on it and stuff too . That's about a five to Let's see here . That's about a $5,000 a year cost to maintain that as well . Now we'll work and a lot of the photograph , the aerial topos that we have , are going to be from the county . But then all the we've got all our GIS system . We can go in and and you know , you can click this morning and click down a pipe , you know , you know what the size is and what the material is . But then I can also look , pull up the original plan from that and have the AS bill you know for that And any easements , any easement documents , stuff like that as well , so so there's some additional costs with that .
Speaker 4Do you , through that system , your own kind of personal property information system ? do you like have ? do you have your tie cards linked to those parcels ? and everything else like that , okay .
Marc CulverAnd that's how we do the notifications , you know , for our public hearings and stuff like that , Cool . So those are , those are some , some additional costs that we have that we probably wouldn't have necessarily . I mean , I think we started , and what do we call it , John ? the ?
Marc Culverthat's the map , I guess , map it is our , is our current map , that I'm describing , our smart map . But we started that a long time ago And so you know that's part of the Egan way . I guess you know . So , even though we didn't get an asset management , even if we would have gotten an asset management program , we're probably still going to work on that and have these similar costs because , you know , folks in all kinds of other departments are utilizing that as well .
Speaker 4So to that point , what about your parks ?
Marc CulverThat was a .
Speaker 4That was a big thing when World's Vote , when we brought in a new asset management system , you know , one of the selling points of the council was that this was going to be . You know , we weren't going to have a different system than a different department was going to . So we had to bring parks in , you know , and and get them to start thinking about asset management that way too . What about the Egan's experience with that ?
Marc CulverWell , it is a very good question . Gis started in public works and has and has gone out kind of city-wide , but it's still it's still 95% in public works . Tammy and I did a big study oh my goodness , almost as 10 years ago because we're going to update it now to try and get everyone to see the benefit of GIS . And folks were seeing it , for you know , they liked maps I want a map like that But they didn't necessarily understand what it all was involved with it . We had a great study done And then I took over on trying to sell it to everybody else and had Tammy help me and yeah , i didn't sell it too good You know , and so we didn't get a lot of support . So when we started going forth with the asset management effort and before you know , i got approval for the asset management coordinator did an asset management study , again , we knew it was going to be GIS based , but I learned from the first effort that I'm going to hire someone to sell it to everybody else , or at least to educate everybody else , And so that was received much better And everybody reckons there was a lot more recognition of the benefit that asset management could provide on a city-wide basis . So , again , i'm the one that's going out , public works is the one that's going out and making the request for the personnel and for the money for the software , and so asset management is initiated , starts in public works . But our asset management coordinator is having those discussions because , you know , i got friends in other departments . Actually , you know , and we talk , yeah , believe it or not , and so there are believers in other departments that are having conversations and you know , our GIS folks , our asset management folks , are good to work with or they're fun people to work with or and they want to do the good stuff that they're doing for us , for others as well , and so we're having those conversations and we're getting the buy And so we're going to , we're going to redo this effort .
Marc CulverIt's 10 years , it's been 10 years since the first GIS effort . So we're going to tie both the GIS and asset management , recognizing that GIS is our backbone , our nervous , central nervous system , it's our brains , it's everything to our asset management program . So , just trying to get everybody to have a better understanding , we've got , we've had changes in our senior management team . You know , we got a bunch of department has that retired And so we have new folks in place . So they're different than when I had this discussion 10 years ago and even , you know , seven or eight years ago with asset management And so . So I believe you know that the folks in parks are going to recognize , and some already are . They're seeing the benefit of that . Trying to help them understand that , you know , maybe they need to . From my perspective , maybe need to put in a little staffing . You know . Involvement .
John GorderFunding as well .
Marc CulverYeah , and funding , you know , and so , but a really really strengthening our relationship with other finance folks . And again , like I said earlier , honestly , asset management is so much about finance , you know , and so finance is really buying in And in fact , just in the last month , we've had some major connections on not that everything I see is exactly perfect and in the way the world should be , but it's like , okay , i think I get what you're saying now , you know , and it's like , yeah , that makes sense . We need to do that , even to the point of increasing the utility rates a little bit more than that utility rate study said , because , okay , our latest and greatest CIP is showing that , you know , we're getting down a little lower than what they feel finance feels comfortable with .
Speaker 4As far as having cash in the bank , yeah , So , and I just want to jump in with just a couple of quick questions on the asset management topic before we move on to anything else . One is and I just wanted to make the point on you you talked a lot about you know field staff entering data in and this , that and the other , and I think that is one of the really the one . For me , one of the biggest benefits to an asset management system was the institutional knowledge you know . Like you taught , you touched on department as a time . Well , we've got a lot of maintenance staff retiring you know industry wide and they're taking a lot of that institutional knowledge with them And so we need to get that in that computer system .
Speaker 4So when you do look at that valve , you know that it was repacked or whatever on a certain year and you know what the maintenance history is on that . And if you don't have a good database system to keep , you don't know that . You know that data is
Asset Management Evolution and Technology
Speaker 4going to be gone . But where do you think , where do you think your asset management system or your program is going to be in the next five to 10 years ? I mean , do you really see it like this ? I think we found our sweet spot . We're good with this . We can grow with this , or do you see it like morphing or evolving ?
Mike SpackYeah , and also are there . I mean , are using Esri for all your street signs or using it for facilities . Are there fleet ? Are there other modules ? areas of the city .
Marc CulverSo I'll answer the software question first . We use Asset Works for our fleet , and Asset Works is a very good asset management program and it's one that can be utilized for more of the things that we've been talking about , and so we've kind of looked at that a little bit . We got Asset Works through a wonderful joint cooperative program with Scott County , i think it is , and so there's a number of cities that work together with Scott County , and I don't know if there's one other maybe Dakota County's together with Scott County on this , but for $10,000 a year , i think . We get .
Marc CulverAsset Works And I'm telling you it has finances so happy with what's happened as a result of our utilization of Asset Works and the folks , the fleet folks that are doing it , Brian Thulman and his crew and Tim Plath encouraging and supporting that . So they are , they're totally bought in , we're , we're , we're within pennies now of Where parts costs . You know Where we think card . You know what was actually Used and what was actually spent . You know on stuff like that , icons , another one , you know another software that works together with Esri .
Marc CulverI think there's , there's a decent potential and and I'll talk a little bit later about an AI effort We use with some software that you know there are with the way we're doing things with Esri , esri's the , the mother , you know , Board or whatever . But I think there's definitely , i see , wisdom in having Using other software programs when they're , when they work better for other things , like for our Water treatment plans . We've got a software program and I'm blanking on the name of it right now , but that's something that works really good for that and and Esri's kind of evolving and they're getting better as far as 3d And being able to do stuff within buildings because you know it's always been an address , location , geographic location , and so that's been a little bit challenging . When you get , you know , three stories worth of something on the same .
Speaker 4Where is it ?
Marc Culverreally right . Yeah , so , as reason , making improvements with that , with this other software We're using . You know that that can be a part of it . Where we're going , as far as you know , are we gonna stay where we're at ? No , i'm really excited about where we're going . We're taking kind of like what we talked about before , where when we go into a neighborhood , we try and do everything at the same time .
Marc CulverWell , we're taking our Street pavement management program evaluations and we're gonna overlay that with our utility evaluations . And now , so it's not just Like John talked about , the 20 every 20 years will come in and do something . Well , that's because our pavement management program is that we do something every 20 years . That's what that's based on . Well , what we're gonna do now is we're gonna look at well , what's the life expectancy of those pipes ? Yeah , and when do those pipes ? When are they gonna be due ? cuz ? All right , and I get this as simple , but I'll just lay it out .
Marc CulverWell , when we replace a water main , we're tearing up the street most of the time because our water main or sanitary sewer and our storm Sewers under our street . So we gotta do , we gotta do some coordination here between Tearing up and replacing streets and and replacing our utilities . I don't want to go in and do a okay Well , we're trying to get streets to last 50 , 60 years . I don't want to do a full street reconstruction a year 60 and then 15 years later We come and tear the street up to replace the sanitary sewer you know , yeah , yeah , and we had that experience in Roseville .
Speaker 4It was more and more our water main replacements were driving our street reconstruction projects than the other way around , because we had to replace these , these waterman Gotcha .
Marc CulverYeah see , we haven't had that experience because , even so young , yeah , you know . And so thankfully you know we're able to do that . But but so it's not going to be . The 20 year schedule for a pavement management program That's gonna guide the Projects is going to be okay . Well , what's gonna make the best bang for a buck ? and maybe , You know , maybe there's a 75 year life expectancy on this RCP or that's guiding it .
Marc CulverAnd you know , instead of doing a reconstruction in year 60 of our street , maybe we got to back up and look , you know , so are we doing something different at year 40 or 50 , where we're doing a Recycle , you know , where we're recycling all the petuminous , where we won't usually do that , we do an overlay , yep , but maybe we're recycling it . So we're extending that out beyond a Reconstruction in 60 . Maybe we're getting a reconstruction in year 75 or 80 and that ties in nicely . So we're not gonna hit it perfect , you know . And we're gonna continue to do evaluations like I described in the one neighborhood this summer . We're gonna continue to do things like that as much as they make sense .
Marc CulverI mean , it's expensive , you know . We're looking at an $86,000 cost estimate to do this evaluation this summer in this neighborhood . I , you know I can't justify that , you know in every neighborhood . But you know we want to try and further refine that life expectancy in Egan , depending upon the soils and the pipe materials and stuff , so that we can try and get as close as The engineers can get , you know , without going insane . You know what is that Timing where we can mesh all that stuff together and it makes as much sense as possible . Again , everything's got different life expectancies . It's not all gonna work out perfect But you know , maybe it's a combination of what we're lining the sanitary sewer , so we don't have to tear that one up and replace it . You know , maybe even the water made we can line too .
John GorderJust a couple things to add on where I think things are going the next five to ten years , how things are going to evolving on asset management . Just to add to Russ's thing , you know We're always looking for new technologies to evaluate our underground infrastructure as well , and then we were always on the lookout for those types of things and you never know what's out there . Yeah , that might be coming , so we're always on the lookout for that . Second item I see as asset management evolving is .
John GorderRuss mentioned this in a meeting a couple days ago that we were having on sustainability . Asset management is a sustainability effort and You know we were always doing , we're always making sustainable efforts in our public infrastructure . You know , whether it's using recycled material and in pavement management Or in street improvements , you know always looking for the best , longest , longest life material to to and to construct our infrastructure . And there's a possibility that asset management becoming a standard sustainability effort might help with our acquisition of funding and and you know You know infrastructure management yeah , and some of your goals towards towards those sustainability efforts as well .
Speaker 4Absolutely Yeah it's a good point .
Mike SpackSo let's flip over to just a couple of rapid-fire questions . We close out the podcast with just around technology . first of all , are there any kind of software programs or technology pieces of equipment you're big fans of like you just Over the last five , ten years that have come out You couldn't imagine living without ?
John Gordernow that you've had it , Back on the GIS , gps side of things . We've discovered in public works EOS units that are Field data collection units that that hook on to your Apple . That's an Apple product , and there I'm not sure what the exact accuracy of it is , but that's that's accurate there .
Marc CulverWhat is the product again ? EOS , eos .
Mike SpackEOS . Okay , we'll get this . Yeah , we'll find we'll get in the show notes . Wow , yeah .
John GorderYou know it's . It's like a a tenth of the cost of a large , High-quality GPS unit , but it provides almost that same level of accuracy very close . And it's just been it's been great for all of our all of our engineering field , technicians , staff to use our water resources . Staff uses it . Utilities , streets maintenance uses it as well . Oh , good to know , that's great .
Speaker 4And that obviously ties into the asset management system . That too .
Marc CulverAbsolutely , yeah , absolutely It's easy to use the frontline staff for using it . I'll throw it out , you know , i'll just . I've mentioned Esri before . Esri's been been awesome . I mean just their , their whole philosophy on . Here's everything we have . You know , do with it what you can , what you want , tell us , share with us what you're , what you're doing , but Wow , they're just really in the enhancements that they've made . That's why we've been able to do stuff in-house . I mean , you know , comparatively and and I haven't Looked recently , but I know we've got a , we've got a good GIS staff and maybe a healthy GIS staff , but we've pieced that together . You know it's always been most of the positions have been half clerical , half GIS and you know We slowly work them to 90% GIS and tenths clerical . But Seriously , we've got we got regular folks that They're willing to try and do anything and Esri really gives them the opportunity to to maximize their , their skills and to maximize what we can do with that tool .
Mike SpackOn the flip side . If you , if I give you a magic wand and you could invent something , fix something right now , where you're like man , i can't believe nobody's come up with this yet .
Infrastructure Management and Asset Planning
Marc CulverWater main Conditioner evaluator for water main pipe .
Speaker 4That would be that would try the acoustic so we tried what the acoustic ?
Marc CulverWe done the acoustic a little bit . We did a AI . We did do an AI thing with water main It . Really , when we compared that to just Water , main breaks and and the standard life , you know stuff , and we just didn't feel comfortable with , with what I mean . It it goes to the soils conditions being . you can see what it does and what it's evaluating , but We didn't think it gave us much more . In fact we thought maybe it's a little too conservative in some areas and it's like That's gonna get expensive Okay you know .
Marc CulverSo yeah , water main evaluation . I Had a conversation with a young guy who's got something like a camera that can go in the water main pipe but Once you you have to really drain it in order to get a good . I mean it could go around all kinds of bends and stuff like that , but you still have to have a point of entry for it .
Marc CulverYep , and then you know I say , well , how about can we , can we put it in there ? You know , can I get it in a hydrant ? because it's almost to the point where you could get it into a hydrant and into it . But he says , yeah , the clarity with the water and there just isn't , isn't , isn't quite there yet , you know . But so that's , that's the one thing .
Speaker 4You know it , and it's interesting for me that you mentioned that you're starting to televised storm water , your storm sewer system , because we were in the kind of the same boat in Roseville . We , we were , we , you know , we were guessing and and we really hadn't I would say we really hadn't paid attention to our storm sewer system . We were getting to the point where we started getting sinkholes and and you know , outlets were falling off and and this , that and the other , and so , you know , we started to budget , to be more , much more proactive and intentional about televising . It's particularly our large pipes under county roads and things like that . You know where we thought we were more critical . But Yeah , yeah and that's , it's amazing . You know , we've been doing the sanitary site for for so long and it was kind of oh Yeah , we should probably do the same thing at the Starve-Sphere right .
Marc CulverOh yeah , that's it . That's where we're at marching , Maybe just one step ahead of that , you know , but not much okay .
Mike SpackAnd , to wrap it up , any kind of hard lessons learned implementing any of this new technology stuff that Kind of you'd like to pass on to others .
Marc CulverI , you know , i guess I would say that Don't be , don't be thin skinned . You know , my , my former boss , who the thing the world of would say rust . I don't want to go and be paying for somebody's Utility expenses that they're not even born yet . You know , i don't , i don't want to do that . That's , that's crazy . Yeah , you know , i never said well , you know , before you came to town , guess what a lot of other folks paid for all The improvements that you could get water , yep , the sewer could go leave from your home .
Marc CulverBut You know , i guess , talk , there's resources out there . I'll give another plug for APWA and you know , in our asset management Committee and we're trying to do stuff , go to the , go to the website . There's some good , really good stuff out there at a national level . But if you're in Minnesota , go through that group and we can give you some good guidance on where to go and where not to go . But I guess , for what I'm experiencing and I think , the world of all the Egan staff we work with , but it's different , it's still a different idea , and so be patient . Okay , i know , but keep at it Because honestly , this is .
Marc CulverI don't mean to end on a sour note , but I honestly see and I'll use Minnesota as an example but smaller communities , out-state communities that have a lot of the utility systems they currently have , or maybe results of the Clean Water Act , and I'm thinking more of like sanitary sewer treatment facilities and stuff , man , they're 50 , 60 years old now and they have an establishment funding to let a lot of them keep up with repairs , let alone other than replace those systems .
Marc CulverI honestly and I don't want to speak doom and gloom , but I think there's communities out there that we love going to , whether it's a place we stop to go hunting or in the winter time or whatnot that may not be there in another 20 , 30 years because they can't afford to be Right . And I had this conversation with somebody else who's more familiar with the metro area and they said , russ , that's going to happen on the outskirts of the metro area . There's going to be communities like that as well . And so for me , what motivates me is trying to have quality of life be sustained into perpetuity for EGAN and the other communities , but to try and start planning as soon as we can and start setting aside money so we can pay for these future expenses that are coming in .
Speaker 4Yeah , And you know there are some states and I know I keep extending this episode here , but there are some states that actually mandate an asset management plan And Minnesota doesn't do that yet . But maybe there needs to be some more talk about at least some best practices and some things like that , or some certifications or something , in order to really push that in some of these smaller communities .
Marc CulverMark I , had conversations with a couple of House committees this spring and I don't know if a proposal has gone forward , but one of the chairs was looking at proposing . Michigan has something like this where they've got a state I don't know what it it literally was like three staff people and they had the right to use transportation staff and others but to actually have an asset management council I guess maybe I'll use that term and establishing that to help start looking out and encouraging communities or agencies . Being someone who's going to kind of be an advocate for financing for those needed and future improvements .
John GorderYeah , that's funny . I read an article in the start of you yesterday about the St Anthony Falls Dam and how it was built in 1876 and no one knows what the condition of it is and no one's taking responsibility for it , including the Corps of Engineers . and the article writer said nothing gets politicians scurrying faster than mentioning the term asset management or infrastructure management and that type of thing . They don't have any , unless it's new infrastructure , they don't care about it .
Speaker 4Well , right , i mean , that's the one thing we've heard from legislators is well , nobody's talking about transportation funding . well , why should they ? They don't understand it . They don't really understand how , if we don't start taking care of our roadways , in 20 years they're going to be well , they're going to look like the ones in St Paul . they're going to be gravel , you know .
Mike SpackWell that actually brings . I mean going back to some of the other infrastructure . We have paved roads and kind of more rural areas that have 50 hundred cars a day and at some point who's going ? to pay to replace that pavement , or do we need to revert to gravel Right ?
Speaker 4I mean , those are hard conversations to have , but we can't ignore them , right , and it's hard to get attention to them because it's not sexy . It's not some of these sexier policy items that they're dealing with at the Lexus .
Mike SpackIt's not a ribbon , it's not a ceremony around that .
John GorderIt's not improving something , it's maintaining something Right .
Mike SpackYeah Well , John , anything else to add Close up
Productive Technical Discussion
Mike Spackhere ?
John GorderNo , i think that covers it for probably over our time anyway . Yeah , it's okay . Thanks for the opportunity .
Mike SpackThanks Russ , Thanks John , Yeah , this was great conversation .
Speaker 4This is exactly what we want it to be . Is this conversation and hopefully glean some technical information out of it . At the same time , And as we fade out of this episode , I also want to give a shout out to our great producer back there . Tony , who's helping , sets all the stuff up for us , gets it going and make sure we sound and look good through this .
Mike SpackYeah , thanks , tony , at least .
Speaker 4I'm good , all right , thanks , thank you everybody , thank you .
John GorderThanks .
