Repeat Storms Maxing Out City Snow Budgets
Thursday, February 12, 2015
A steady string of winter storms has exhausted the snow budgets of several of Rhode Island’s largest cities, with one community more than half a million dollars in the red.
Pawtucket is already hundreds of thousands over budget. Cranston is operating over budget. And four other communities already have or are on the verge of maxing out their budgets: Central Falls, North Providence, Warwick, and East Providence.
Likewise, at the state level, an official at the Department of Transportation said it expects to spend all of its $14 million in its snow budget, a figure based on the five-year average of annual snow costs.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST“With this latest storm, we are at the five-year average; however, this includes funding for materials (i.e., sand/salt)—the most significant line item in the winter ops budget—that should take us through the rest of the season. As always, safety is our highest priority, and we will continue to plow and treat roads as needed and work with budget officials to identify resources should there be future storm events,” said DOT spokesperson Rose Amoros said in an e-mail.
‘No end in sight’ for winter weather
At the local level, even those cities that are still comfortably under budget—including Providence and Woonsocket—may not long enjoy being in the black. This weekend has the potential to bring another blizzard with what a spokesman for the National Weather Service’s Boston-Taunton office described as “catastrophic” effects, including well over a foot of snow. “If they’re not already stretched, the potential is there that this Sunday storm will do it,” said the spokesman, Glenn Field.
And that’s just one of many more. Another storm will follow next Wednesday. “There’s really no end in sight in the 10 to 14 days we can look into the future,” Field said.
“That’s still only February,” he added. “You’ve still got March.”
Juno cost Pawtucket $1M
Pawtucket set aside $550,000 to handle all snow-related costs this winter. That includes expected overtime costs for city workers, payments to private contractors, and material like salt and sand. The city blew through its budget in the blizzard alone, which cost Pawtucket about $1 million, including $600,000 to $700,000 for equipment rentals, such as large pay-loaders and dump trucks to cart off snow, according to Dylan Zelazo, the chief of staff for Mayor Don Grebien.
“Pawtucket being such a densely populated area, there is only so much space to put snow on the side of city streets and, with at least two snow events being tracked for later in the week following Juno, our public works team determined we would need to truck large amounts of snow off of our city streets,” Zelazo said.
The city is now nearly half a million over budget—and it hasn’t even tallied the cost for the two storms that followed the blizzard.
Pawtucket had hoped for a federal reimbursement, but was told earlier this week that it should operate under the assumption that it will not receive the aid, Zelazo said. That prompted Grebien to announce a freeze on “non-essential purchasing, line item expenditures, and hiring,” according to Zelazo.
“The city’s primary function is to ensure public safety, and we have to continue to make sure the roads are safe for our residents, regardless of the budgeted figure. We will do what we need to do to make the costs up elsewhere in the budget. The Mayor and his team have also worked diligently over the last four years to rebuild the city’s depleted ‘rainy day’ fund to over $10 million, but we would only tap that money as an option of last resort,” Zelazo said.
Community rolled the dice—and lost
Cranston socked away $650,000 for snow removal this winter, including $275,000 for salt and sand, $130,000 for overtime, and $200,000 in payments to private vendors.
As of this week, none of it was left.
“The city of Cranston is currently operating over budget for snow removal this winter,” said Carlos Lopez, chief of staff for Mayor Allan Fung. Lopez said he did yet have an estimate for just how far over budget the city has already gone.
Several communities are just at the breaking point.
North Providence budgeted $250,000 for this winter. The town had $45,000 left before this week’s storm. Now Mayor Charles Lombardi estimates it probably has none. “We’re pretty close to tapped out right now,” Lombardi told GoLocalProv.
Last year, the town’s snow budget was $300,000 but it didn’t spend all of it. So it decided to cut it for this year. “We rolled the dice,” Lombardi said.
Warwick has just $18,424.70 left to spend out of a snow budget that stood at $435,000 at the beginning of the season, according to a city spokeswoman. That total includes $100,000 for overtime, $130,000 for private plows, and $165,000 for salt.
Officials in the three communities said they would make up the difference by finding money elsewhere in their budgets. Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian said that would happen closer to the end of the fiscal year, when the city reconciles its accounts, offsetting line items where more was spent than expected with those that came in under budget.
“Should the $20,000 that’s left in the snow removal budget not get us to the end of the year, we would take the last 90 days of the fiscal year and re-distribute and re-allocate, do transfers, and if need be supplemental appropriations, to take care of any overage in the snow removal budget,” Avedisian said.
“We’ll have to find the money,” said Lombardi, adding that he would do that without compromising essential services, like fire and police.
Providence and Woonsocket in the black—for now
So far, Providence and Woonsocket have room to spare in their snow budgets.
Providence was counting on spending up to $1.6 million this season, including: $380,000 on salaries, $500,000 on rentals from vendors, and $500,000 on materials like salt and sand, according to city Internal Auditor Matt Clarkin.
As of February 10, the city was about two thirds of the way through its budget, according to Evan England, spokesman for Mayor Jorge Elorza. The city is also hoping to receive a federal reimbursement of $750,000 for what it has already spent, England noted.
“Either way, we are on track to respond to the remainder of the snow season. In the event that we are faced with exceeding our snow response budget, we will work to find savings elsewhere to cover the overage,” England said.
Woonsocket has spent at least 55 percent of the $476,000 it has available for snow removal costs, according to Public Works Director Steven D’Agostino. “So far, so good,” D’Agostino said.
D’Agostino noted that the city has had to find ways of doing the job with less money. In the winter of 2010 to 2011 the city had $620,000 available for snow removal costs and spent $465,856. It also had a highway department that was double its present complement of 22 workers.
He said was one of the reasons he was hired nine months ago was for his 40 years of experience in snow removal in the private sector. “There’s two things that will really kill you: salt and sand—and all the rentals,” D’Agostino said. “They key is to call them in at the appropriate time. You have to let the storm develop.”
D’Agostino said Woonsocket’s snow removal budget should be able to weather any more storms that hit this season.
“Barring another blizzard,” he quickly added.
Related Slideshow: City Snow Budgets - See the Numbers
The below slides show how much eight communities have already spent on snow removal and how much, if anything, they have left. Snow budgets typically break down into four categories: overtime for city plow truck drivers, the cost of private snow plows, salt, and sand. Note that not all cities use private plows and that a detailed breakdown for all four categories was not available for all eight communities. Where available, a comparison to the situation at approximately the same time of year in 2011—a year which also saw record-breaking repeat snow storms—is also provided. Budget figures were collected from local city and town authorities. Communities are listed by the status of their budgets, from those with the most remaining to the cities that are deepest in the red.
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