The estimated cost of $250,000 for the emergency road cleanup after January’s blizzard was money worth spending, and perhaps far less than many taxpayers had imagined.
City crews were taxed far beyond their limits — both because of equipment availability, lack of experienced grader operators and the sheer volume of snow that needed to be removed. However, with the assistance of private contractors, the snow removal emergency action plan went into high gear, and with only some minor glitches and miscalculations, city residents got moving relatively easily over a two-week period.
City council will deal with the aftermath of this unexpected cost when it tackles the 2010 operating budget in the coming weeks. The engineering department will be asking for a total snow removal budget of $262,000. Council will have to look seriously at whether that amount should be increased to cover further unexpected snowfalls of similar magnitude or whether the reserve fund of $191,000 will be accessed to cover any shortfalls.
Predicting the snowfall from year to year is not an exact science but the city has been lucky to be able to tuck away a bit of a reserve over the past few easy snow seasons to handle the years when snowfall surpasses expectations.
Council’s discussions of the snow removal system will no doubt provide some interesting dialogue.
Those discussions should also include the necessity of hiring and/or training employees to undertake the massive task that follows a prairie blizzard.
