Snow Removal Costs Set to Surpass $400,000

Since Dec. 10 when the first measurable snow fell on Stratford, the town has spent nearly $400,000 on snow removal, well above what town officials had budgeted and it’s still only Feb. 18 – although ironically temperatures today are expected to be well into the 50s (enjoy it while it lasts).

“It’s been a long January,” Public Works Director Maurice McCarthy told members of the Town Council at its meeting last Monday (Feb. 14). With his report coming on the heels of a discussion concerning town beaches, McCarthy quipped, “I’d rather be giving a report on the beach … but between Dec. 26 and now we’ve had three storms of 15 inches or more, and a couple of three- and four-inch storms. 

“After the first storm, the blizzard” on the day after Christmas, he said, when 18 inches fell in town, “things got tougher and tighter.” 

Once January rolled around and several big storms hit, he said, “we ran out of places to put [the snow].” 

McCarthy noted that the town had many vehicles on the road at one time covering 20 planned routes. However, during the bigger storms, he admitted that some residents “became impatient, and rightly so. 

“The problem is it takes 14-16 hours” to plow several hundred miles of town roads, he said. “It doesn’t take an hour after the storm stops,” and “we did hear from residents” who were unhappy with the pace of snowplowing during several of the storms.

“In any event, I give my thanks to the public works staff. Everyone work willingly and they worked hard. 

“They put in a lot of long hours,” McCarthy said, acknowledging that in order to comply with federal [OSHA] safety rules, “we have to take drivers out of vehicles after 16 hours.” Many had only four hour breaks, “and we did that and yet it still took us a long time to move that amount of snow.” 

Of course, equipment does break down, too, he told the Council, “and if we have a breakdown we don’t have a fill-in,” which complicates even the most optimistic of plowing schedules.  

In a best case scenario, if no more snow falls on Stratford for the remainder of winter and the federal government comes through with aid to help the town pay for snow removal costs, then the town will only be out about $37,000 that will need to come from the town’s general fund. 

McCarthy explained that the town spent about $356,000 on overtime, and about $43,000 on materials (sand, salt, etc.). “The average storm cost $47,347 for eight snow events,” he said. 

After deducting what the town will be reimbursed for maintaining the railroad parking lost, and using the state funded balance in the town road aid account ($223,639), that leaves the town with a negative balance of about $149,000, McCarthy said. 

“We feel pretty comfortable that FEMA will fund one, maybe two” storms at 70-75% of the total cost, or about $122,000, and based on all the information we have, “and if FEMA comes through then we would be about $36,790 in the negative – a number that includes all overtime, equipment, material and repairs. 

“This does not include any future storms,” he said, not to mention “ … one of the issues this year that haven’t had to address before” were the costs incurred for clearing roofs on school buildings. 

There is a “massive amount of square footage” on the roofs, he said, and after the third large storm the department accrued $19,000+ in overtime costs alone clearing school roofs. “But it was like shoveling sand in the dessert.”

After McCarthy’s report, Mayor John Harkins praised McCarthy and town workers, while acknowledging that his office also fielded numerous calls from residents unhappy with the plowing. 

“Public works did a good job,” Harkins told the Council. “People do get upset, but we are constantly trying to improve snow plowing in town.” However, he added, this has not been a normal year by any stretch of the imagination.