With the exception of Dufferin Oaks and the Dufferin County Museum, all county facilities will now come under the umbrella of the building department, at what the chief building official says will be the saving of "a lot of money."

According to a report filed jointly by Chief Building Official Mike Giles and Community Services Director Dan Best, outside of the Oaks and the museum, the county uses about 266,000 square feet of buildings, comprising 225 social housing units at eight locations in addition to the courthouse, child-care centre, two ambulance stations, and the public works facility at Primrose.

A report from Mr. Giles indicates that much of that property has come into the county's possession since January 2001, and centralizing management of all the facilities has been under discussion at least since then.

Before that, the province administered and maintained the social housing on the basis of a maintenance format that generalized the expected life of components. Mr. Giles says the life of things such as concrete, utilities, and other things can be extended with proper maintenance.

The facilities that have come under control and/or ownership of the county since 2001 have included the Jean Hamlyn Day Care, the 225 units of social housing in Orangeville, Shelburne and Grand Valley, the ambulance stations at Orangeville and Grand Valley, and community services at 229 Broadway.

Mr. Giles said the combined value of all the facilities is in the order of $65 million. (In municipal accounting, that value doesn't show on the balance sheet.) However, he said in his report that protection of these assets "is extremely important to the financial health of the County."

The comment appears to be an exercise in diplomacy, as it was generally acknowledged by residents of social housing that there was much left to be desired in their maintenance.

Centralizing management and consolidation of staff, Mr. Giles said, would result in savings to the county not only because of economies of scale in purchases and tendering, but also because all facilities could be maintained for energy efficiency.

He pointed to an Ainsworth Energy Consultants audit that showed there was little or nothing the county could be doing beyond what it has already done in that regard, and "to proceed with (a further audit) would produce a negligible return."

Centralization of services usually comes with some kind of price. In this case, it would appear from the report that the cost is negative.

There would be one fewer full-time person at the upper level in Community Services, with a summer student to fill in when regular maintenance staff are on vacation.

The upper-level person being replaced would, in effect, constitute a vacancy in terms of the makeup of county staffing.

But county council had not budgeted for a replacement for 2007.

Instead, Mr. Giles recommended it budget to a maximum of $10,000 annually for the proposed summer student, on the understanding that this would be a maximum figure and not an amount carved in stone.

However, he said, centralizing tendering among departments had already resulted in a savings of $70,000 over the next three years.

Other savings would result from contracts with plumbers and other such tradesmen, among other things, rather than individual calls to available trades on a periodical basis.

"In time, we're going to save a lot of money. We're going to make things last longer," he said.