Ontario's Financial Accountability Office (FAO) says it would take about $400 million to bring the Sarnia-Chatham-Windsor area's provincial assets, including schools, hospitals and highways, to a state of good repair.
A new report showed the tri-county area has the lowest share of assets in a state of good repair at 65.7 per cent, compared to a provincial average of 71.3 per cent.
Financial Accountability Officer Peter Weltman said it really just comes down to a matter of money.
"So to bring the assets in this region to a state of good repair, it would cost roughly $400 million, and about half of that money would be needed by the school sector," he said.
Weltman said the report, released last month, is the first of its kind to provide a reference point for Ontarians to look at the state of play of the assets, understand what the province owns, what is in a good state of repair and what areas need more attention.
"So what we did in the report is we looked over a 10-year period -- now we didn't do this specifically for Windsor-Sarnia, but we looked over the whole province, and we calculated that if you put $65 billion over the 10 years that would bring all of the assets in the province up to a state of good repair."
Weltman said the Ontario government has allocated $47.7 billion in its capital plan, which isn't quite enough according to the FAO's books.
He added if you're running assets that aren't in a state of good repair they deteriorate and cost more to repair down the road.
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