For all their wearisome hassle, this month’s winter storms have at least had the courtesy to arrive on weekends, sparing commuters slick, snarled rides to work.
But that timing is proving decidedly inconvenient for Massachusetts communities that must shell out costly overtime pay to have the streets plowed in a month that could break snowfall records.
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There is no excuse for cities not budgeting enough for snow removal.
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What happened to the excess from the budget last year?
Let me guess, instead of saving it for a tougher than usuall winter in the future, they spent it on something else.
Budgets work on a fiscal year basis; snow removal is a line item, and if the money doesn't get spent (not much or no snow to speak of), it doesn't carry over from the previous year. Each fiscal year is a clean slate. Use it or lose it.
Where is the incentive for government to be fiscally responsible?
i am sure you are correct about snow removal being a use it or lose it line item.
wouldnt it make sense during the easy years to save some of the unused budget for bad winters so we don't have this under budget problem every year with extra snow?
welcome to global warming
snow removal expenditures may be subject to waste. three hours after the last blizzard and snow has stopped the snow plows are still circulating the neigborhood with plows down but no snow is noticeable in the plow since the roads had been cleared hours ago. the weather map shows that the storm has cleared the area hours ago. Are these drivers just chalking up more billable hours by continuing to drive around? who monitors the need to keep plowing over already plowed streets and the snow has long since stopped? this overplowing occurs in all storms not just blizzards. no wonder the budget gets used up so quickly - it's a feeding frenzy.
I see the same thing all the time. Plows all over the place and not much snow.
The inefficiencies we all see are staggering. They get paid by the hour; what else is there to know?
In a business like snow, weekends should not be automatically overtime...just like other "emmergent" services, weekends are not in and of themselves overtime...that right there will save money. And if the DPW heads were watching, they would knowwhen the plows are done shoveling and just circling neighborhoods and wouldn't send them out before there was snow on the ground to plow...that in and of itself would probably shave 4 hours off...
From the article: "Less than 10 inches of snow fell in Boston last winter, making it one of the mildest in memory." But I bet the snow removal budget was fully spent.
I remember past winters when we got much more snow than we've gotten this winter so far. And yet this issue comes up every year, probably because even if the winter is mild, the leftover money is spent on something else, and then next winter everyone wonders where all the snow removal money is. Furthermore, it's not like the roads in each town change, it's the same setup every year, aside from maybe a few new developed neighborhoods. They should have a rough idea of how much to spend and how many plow, sand, and salt trucks they need to effectively clear all the roads in their town.
It's been a fairly snow-free winter. We had virtually no snow until February and the only serious storm was the recent blizzard. We've had *much* worse winters -- many of them.
Not enough money was budgeted because of shortsighted officials. Shortsightedness is a government disease. So what's new?
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