Snow removal costs eat into local DPW budgets

The white stuff is stacking up across Monroe and Orleans counties with the green stuff following it. With snow continuing to fall and with no end to snow removal in sight, Brockport Department of Public Works Supervisor Brad Upson announced they have exceeded their snow budget.

"We had $54,000 in the budget for snow removal and right now we've spent $80,000," Upson told village officials at the regular board meeting on February 2. "We've had full crews on almost every night and continue to haul snow to the East Avenue waste water treatment plant."

Upson didn't apply for permits to dump snow into the Erie Canal, as is a practice with many municipalities. Because of the work recently completed on the canal walls, Upson said he didn't want to have the truck traffic on them this year. He said there is ample space at the East Avenue site.

In the towns of Clarkson ad Sweden, DPW Superintendents Dave Goodwin and Fred Perrine said they are both in pretty good shape, both budget and salt supply-wise.

Sweden's Perrine said, "We're not in too bad of shape even though all of the snow has really put a dent in our budget."

Perrine said that how much the budget will be affected depends on what the rest of the winter brings. "At least we've had a little bit of respite," he said.

Clarkson's Goodwin explained that he feels we're 56 percent through the winter season and he has spent about 75 percent of his snow budget. "Last year at this time we had spent 77 percent of the budget," he explained.

The salt supply in Clarkson is adequate, Goodwin said, but with their minimal storage capacity they don't have too much salt kept on hand. "Sometimes the salt suppliers are slow in getting our deliveries to us, but we've been able to keep up," he said.