Winter cleanup costs pile up in Maine communities

PORTLAND – This winter has been a busy one for sanding trucks and plows throughout the state, so much so that many municipalities are in danger of going over their winter budgets.

Communities have been busy keeping streets clear ever since a Christmas Day storm dumped a foot or more of snow over parts of southern and central Maine.

Subsequent snowfalls have been eating into budgets for snow-related costs.

“We’re pretty well shot at this point,” said Bath City Manager John Bubier.

Bath’s winter budget is about $281,000, with about $80,000 of the money used for sand, salt and liquid calcium chloride to melt ice. Winter budgets also include funds for equipment maintenance and overtime for truck drivers.

“We’re pretty close to that number,” Bubier said. “If we get a couple of more storms, we’re going to be well over.”

Overtime is one of the biggest costs. In Bath, each storm costs the city about $3,000 in labor, Bubier said.

Portland budgets about $900,000 for its winter operations and has spent about 60 percent of that so far, according to Peter DeWitt, spokesman for the Portland Public Works Department.

“I’m cautiously optimistic we’ll be able to get through this year,” he said.

In Bangor, Public Works Director Arthur Stockus said Thursday, “We’re still in decent shape but it will depend on what happens between now and the end of the season.”

He said that the city typically budgets about $800,000 a year for snow removal and that the total cost remained below that, despite having to purchase more salt than anticipated.

While snowfall varies from year to year, the city typically plans for 12 snowstorms a year, Stockus said. He said the 2002-03 season so far has yielded fewer storms than in some years, but that the storms that did occur dropped relatively large amounts of snow, which took longer than usual to clean up. He added that February is usually a heavy snowfall month, but this year it has been unusually cold with relatively light snowfall.

In recent years, he said, annual snow removal costs have varied from about $650,000 last year to close to $1 million in 1998, when the state was hit by a major ice storm.

So much snow fell on Aroostook County earlier this month that Gov. John Baldacci and Maine’s congressional delegation asked President George Bush to declare it a disaster area.

Northern Maine towns ran up considerable expense when a record three-day snowfall from back-to-back storms and blizzard winds hit the area. Some parts of The County received more than 30 inches of snow, eclipsing the previous record for a three-day storm of 26.2 inches.

If the disaster request is approved, up to 75 percent of the cost of the cleanup, estimated at more than $700,000, could be granted Aroostook County towns.

Meanwhile, in southern Maine, Kittery Town Manager Phil McCarthy said he is monitoring the amount of sand the town is using. Most years, some money from the sand budget carries over to the next year, but it’s not clear if that will be the case this year.

It’s nearly impossible to predict how much money is needed each year for wintertime cleanup.

Kennebunk Town Manager Barry Tibbetts said he generally averages spending for the previous four or five years to come up with a figure.

“It’s kind of like guessing,” Tibbetts said. “I don’t know how many storms we’re going to have year to year.”

Fortunately, Tibbetts said, state law does offer him an escape valve.

When there are emergency road conditions in communities with a town meeting form of government, officials are allowed to take money directly out of surplus or use undesignated funds without holding an emergency town meeting.