By CRAIG FREILICH

POTSDAM -- The village Board of Trustees will be taking a more systematic approach to tracking capital assets in order to better plan for maintenance and replacement.

“This is something we should have been doing for a long time,” said Mayor Ron Tischler.

“It will give is a better grasp of what’s going on in the village” with particular attention to the larger assets such as water and wastewater infrastructure, the mayor said.

“It will be to see what we have, what needs replacement, at what cost,” he said.

At their meting Monday, the board laid out the basis for the plan in six steps:

• development of policy and objectives.

• creating an inventory of assets including condition

• prioritization of projects and expenditures for each, with public input

• assessment of impacts on the budget

• discussion and strategizing capital acquisition

• implementation of the capital assets plan alongside the yearly budget.

The plan itself would be revised annually.

“The objective of this plan to provide the village with a long term plan for the improvement and replacement of assets while providing guidance during budget preparation,” said the resolution approved by the board Monday.

“That way the taxpayer is not going to get hit with one large payment,” since the plan will provide time to prepare for major projects, said Tischler.

Canton is working on a similar plan with the help of the Development Authority of the North Country (DANC).

“We’ve had some discussion with DANC,” Tischler said, “and we’re still talking,” but it is in the early stages, he said.