Local governments are facing steep costs this winter for snow plowing and salting roads, as well as for patching potholes, such as this one on Starlight Road in Howell. STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER ERIC SUCAR Officials throughout New Jersey are licking their financial and logistical wounds following the recent spate of snowstorms that will ultimately cost all levels of New Jersey government in the millions.
“This year’s the new record [for spending],” New Jersey Department of Transportation (DOT) spokesman Steven Schapiro said.
Tasked with maintaining more than 13,000 lane miles of road throughout the state, the DOT spent $82.3 million for snow removal between the first snowfall of the season in December and Feb. 11, making this the costliest winter yet. During the same time period last year, the DOT spent $62.5 million. Schapiro said the state budgets $10.3 million for snow removal each year. Though this winter’s current price tag is $72 million more than that allotment, Schapiro said the department has a budgetary tactic set up with the state Department of Treasury to avert potential catastrophe.
“As the winter progresses, the Department of Treasury reimburses us for expenditures, so there’s never a fear of running out of money,” Schapiro said. “Our top priority is safety, and we’re going to do everything we can do to ensure safety for our motorists.”
At the county level, Ocean County Road Department Supervisor Tom Curcio said more than $1.25 million has been spent so far on overtime and salt. Ocean County maintains approximately 1,600 lane miles of road and more than 250 bridges and culverts, according to Curcio.
In Monmouth County, Highway Division spokeswoman Laura Kirkpatrick said the final tally on how much this winter will cost is still undetermined.
“I know we were within our snow-removal budget as of a couple storms ago,” Kirkpatrick said.
More than a dozen snowstorms hit the Garden State from Dec. 8 to Feb. 15, according to the Office of the New Jersey State Climatologist at Rutgers University.
“The number of storms and the frequency has made this winter quite challenging,” Schapiro said.
With the typical snow season lasting into April, the skyrocketing cost of winter has become a trend that has municipal officials statewide worried about the coming weeks.
“You can never fully budget for a year like we have right now. You do the best that you can, but you’re rolling the dice, essentially,” Howell Mayor Bill Gotto said.
Much like other municipalities in the region, Howell has been left strapped for cash due to the depletion of funding set aside for snow removal in the 2013 municipal budget and the temporary 2014 budget. Gotto said Howell has plowed through its snow-budget appropriation of approximately $750,000 and the entirety of its reserve fund for snow removal.
“It hadn’t been until the [Feb. 15] storm [that] we had to reallocate some funds in our budget to refund some things in our snow fund,” Gotto said.
The township’s public works crew is tasked with clearing and maintaining approximately 600 lane miles — a measurement that multiples each mile of road by the number of lanes.
Jackson Township has also gone through its snow-relief funding at a quick pace, burning through two-thirds of its roughly $400,000 appropriation, according to Business Administrator Jose Torres.
“We’re at the peak of the winter season, and unfortunately we’re close to the end of our [snow removal] budget,” Torres said.
The Jackson Township Municipal Utilities Authority maintains approximately 1,250 roadways, totaling roughly 245 lane miles.
The snow budget figure covers a number of services, such as potential help from outside contractors and overtime pay for inhouse employees.
Old Bridge Business Administrator Christopher Marion said the township has also seen increases in overtime and supply costs related to snow removal.
“We’ve also had increases in tree removal and all the other costs you would expect with an active snow season,” he said.
Old Bridge is expected to cross the $1 million threshold with this year’s snow costs, Marion said. From December until Feb. 10, the township spent $858,201 on a combination of overtime, fees paid to outside contractors, bulk salt purchases and tree-removal efforts.
The impact of this season may even stretch into next year’s municipal budgets.
“Going into next year, we’ve lost that whole bank,” Gotto said of Howell’s budget situation. “If we get another season like we did last year, then you have a major problem.”
Many municipalities have already begun preliminary budget hearings for 2014, and the depletion of funds has officials concerned.
“Unfortunately, once the snow season ends, we can’t relax and go into spring and summer. We have to think about next year’s snow season,” Marion said. “It’s just difficult to predict snow budgets.”
Despite fears from his colleagues about going over budget on snow removal and still being limited to the state-imposed 2 percent cap on tax increases, Plumsted Business Administrator Ron Dancer said the state cap law allows exceptions when a state of emergency has been declared.
“The governor has declared a state of emergency for a number of these snowfalls that we’ve had, so every governing body has the flexibility that if they do not have enough funding within the 2 percent cap, they are permitted to go outside the cap to pay for the required snow and ice removal,” Dancer said.
Also challenging governments at all levels this winter is a significant increase in the number of potholes, which are created when water seeps beneath a road’s blacktop, only to freeze and expand before melting, leaving a divot in the road once a car drives over it.
While in previous years, officials would rely on a “cold patch” asphalt material as a temporary pothole repair, Curcio said the high volume of storm events has rendered the method useless.
“Plows would just end up pulling the cold patch back out of the pothole while going over the road,” Curcio said.
A more permanent solution would be to use hot asphalt to fill the hole, but Curcio said the material is difficult to procure this time of year.
According to Schapiro, the state repaired 25,600 potholes in January — more than double that of the previous January, when 12,200 holes were filled.
“In January, we had several severe thawfreeze cycles … so that really took a toll on our roads, and we’ve had to repair a good number of potholes because of that,” he said.
For emergency pothole repairs, which normally target holes in main travel lanes, Schapiro said it takes roughly two to three hours from the moment it is reported until it is patched over by workers.
The approach is different on the municipal level, where the spike in potholes is significant because repairs are not made in full force until the weather warms up in March and April, Gotto said.
“There’s usually only so much you can do about potholes until the weather breaks,” the Howell mayor said.
Another problem facing the region has been the shortage of the bulk salt that is used to prevent roads from icing over after a snowfall.
In Jackson, which spans more than 100 square miles and is the third-largest municipality in the state, officials have to prioritize when clearing and salting township roads.
“When you have a town this big, there’s really not one particular area. Our game plan is usually to do the priority roads first and then make our way to the secondary roads and so on,” Jackson Department of Public Works Director Fred Rasiewicz said.
Gotto said Howell has had to make do with the salt they had stored away.
“We were able to treat roads we needed to, but we had to ration [our salt use] a little bit,” he said.
Officials at the county and state levels have also had to worry about salt supplies.
“Usually, when our supply gets low, we have a break long enough to replenish our supply. That hasn’t happened this year,” Kirkpatrick said of Monmouth County’s salt supply. “[In early February], the only salt we had was in the county trucks. For all intents and purposes, our barns were empty.”
County officials, she said, “are very concerned” about the ability to properly tend to the roads during the next major weather event.