By Joanne Degnan, Staff Writer
The successive storms that have buried central New Jersey this winter with up to 60 total inches of snow are creating havoc with municipal budgets and school calendars, and have mayors and superintendents hoping for an early spring.
”When I do a budget, I plan on maybe two to four storms for an entire winter — not one every week,” said Upper Freehold Township Business Administrator Dianne Kelly, echoing the sentiment of many municipal officials.
”These storms are budget killers,” said Plumsted Mayor Ronald Dancer. “There’s the cost of the salt, the snow removal, the overtime and then the road repairs that are needed afterward. We really do need some help.”
Mayor Dancer said municipalities were recently told by the state Local Finance Board that a portion of the emergency snow removal costs associated with the late-December blizzard, which brought more that 2 feet of snow in some places, could be eligible for an exclusion from the new 2 percent tax levy cap. The exclusion applies only to the portion of the snow removal bill that is above what a community would normally pay for a typical snowstorm, he said.
”But it’s not just the December storm that’s killing us, it’s all these smaller January storms that we have been having that are adding up too,” Mayor Dancer said. “There’s no doubt about it that we need some help.”
The snow emergency declared by the state during the Dec. 26 storm means communities can apply for Federal Emergency Management Agency aid for some of their cleanup costs associated with that particular storm. It does not necessarily mean that they will receive all of what they ask for, however.
Millstone Township Business Administrator Phil Del Turco said his town spent approximately $95,000 cleaning up from the December blizzard, including overtime, salt, snow removal, gasoline and wear and tear on equipment.
”We went through 150 tons of salt in that December storm alone and expect to use another 1,000 tons before winter is over,” Mr. Del Turco said.
Mr. Del Turco said that despite the frustration of “trying to come in with an austere budget and getting walloped by Mother Nature,” public safety is paramount, so when the snow falls you do what needs to be done.
”We had 10 public works employees working round the clock in the last storm,” he said, referring to the one that struck Jan. 26-27. “They really deserve accolades for all their hard work. First there was snow that had to be plowed, and then there was slush that had to be cleaned up so that salt could be put down for the next round of snow that started again in the evening.”
In Robbinsville, where the town has already spent $100,000 on snow removal costs in the first month of 2011, Mayor Dave Fried drove a plow during the January 26-27 storm and afterward jokingly vowed to never approve a development that contains a cul-de-sac again.
”Do you know how long it takes to plow a cul-de-sac?” he asked after last week’s Township Council meeting. “It can take about 25 passes just to get one large cul-de-sac cleaned up.”
Last weekend, when weather forecasters began predicting another mid-week storm was on the way, Robbinsville dispatched bulldozers and dump trucks to remove snow that is stacked 10-feet high in places along some roads and intersections. The snow was loaded into the dump trucks and taken to municipal parks because officials feared there would be no place for plows to push any new snow that fell during the predicted storm.
School superintendents also admitted to being weary from all the snow and the ordeal of being up most of the night during storms making phone calls and weighing whether to cancel classes the next day.
”Let me tell you, I’m really getting tired of standing on my porch at 4:30 a.m. watching the snow fall,” Robbinsville Superintendent Steve Mayer told the Board of Education at its Jan. 25 meeting, perhaps only half-joking.
State law requires 180 days of school every year, so when snowstorms cancel classes it can mean school districts have to tack the missed days on in June. That’s what’s already happened in Millstone, which did not build any snow days into its 2010-2011 calendar. So far the winter school cancellations mean Millstone students will have their last day of school pushed back two days to June 17.
Both the Upper Freehold Regional and Robbinsville school districts adopted calendars with three snow days already built in. They don’t have to extend the school year or start slicing days off the spring break — at least for now.
Millstone’s interim schools superintendent, John Szabo, told the Board of Education at its Jan. 24 meeting that in light of the past two snowy winters, the district should consider building snow days into the 2011-2012 school calendar.
