Harsh winter taking heavy toll on municipal budgets.
By: Jennifer Potash
With mounting cleanup and repair costs, local municipal administrators are not singing the holiday standard "Let It Snow."
With over 40 inches of snow thus far in the Princeton area this season the average is 25 inches and more on the way, municipalities already are spending more than they had planned to budget for the entire year on snow removal and road repairs to keep up with the winter storms.
In addition to plowing the streets and fixing potholes, Princeton Borough has another concern hauling the snow out of the downtown.
"We don’t have anywhere to put it," said Borough Administrator Robert Bruschi. "The snow has to be cleared out so people don’t have to scale a 4-foot snow bank to get to the meters."
The borough benefits from the rolling budget process in New Jersey and may tweak the snow removal item until the budget is ready for adoption, probably by late spring, Mr. Bruschi said.
"We’re not going to say to residents that we’ve spent the whole amount on overtime, salt and repairs and that’s it," Mr. Bruschi said. "We’ll roll with each storm."
For the Feb. 16-17 snowstorm, the borough spent $13,000 for overtime expenses for public works crews to clear the roads and remove the snow from the meters, Mr. Bruschi said. Salt and sand costs for the season are $8,900 to date, and may increase with low-volume snowfalls when the snow depth is too low to plow, he said.
Last year, the borough spent a total of $14,000 for snow removal and $17,000 in 2001, he said. The 2003 budget includes a proposed $23,000, but that number will likely increase, he said.
Unlike some of the blizzard-like snowstorms in the mid-1990s that paralyzed the state for three or four days and led municipalities to seek aid from the state, Mr. Bruschi does not see that happening as a result of the 2003 storms.
Princeton Township had run through the 1,200 tons of road salt and the operating funds earmarked for snow cleanup this winter prior to the big storm, in which an additional 300 tons of salt were used, said Township Engineer Robert Kiser.
Around $45,000 for salt and $30,000 for overtime was spent for the storm cleanup but the extra expense balances out against the past two years, in which only a third of the municipality’s snow-cleanup budget was spent due to mild weather, Mr. Kiser said.
The Princeton Township engineer said it is too soon to quantify the cost of damage to roads, but he expects potholes galore this spring.
"The severe winter has a very destructive effect on roads," Mr. Kiser said. "The repairs will be wide-ranging and costly."
Princeton University, according to the campus publication Princeton Weekly Bulletin, deployed 160 staff members to clear out snow, used 40 tons of sand, 60 tons of road salt and 150 drums of salt pellets and cleared 52 miles of sidewalks and 22 miles of roads and drives following the Feb. 16-17 snowstorm.
In West Windsor, the damage is still being tallied.
"We don’t have any exact information related to the storm just yet," said Joanne Louth, the township’s chief financial officer. "I’m still awaiting reports from various departments. Our Public Works director in particular is really overwhelmed."
But even without exact figures, Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh says he estimates the storm’s costs including supplies such as salt, overtime and repairs to some equipment at more than $200,000.
"This is definitely going to put a big dent in our budget," he continued. "There’s no question this storm has had a big impact."
In Plainsboro, the storm cost the township about $9,000 in supplies salt and liquid calcium about $39,000 for reimbursement to condominiums for snow removal and about $19,600 in overtime. The township’s budget for snow removal in 2002 was $66,000.
"This storm pushed us over that amount," said Wendy Wulstein, the township’s chief financial officer. "So we’ve increased the amount budgeted for 2003 to $122,000."
Montgomery Township Administrator Donato Nieman said costs incurred from snow removal in January and February alone have almost exceeded those of the entire last year.
"Snow removal is an expensive proposition," he said. "With these storms alone, we came close to $100,000."
He said the township is still working on the exact price tag for this year’s snowstorms.
Staff writers David Campbell, Gwen Runkle and Paul Sisolak contributed to this story.

