By Brad Johnson
Register-Herald Reporter
BECKLEY — The snow that never seems to stop falling is wreaking havoc with local government budgets, with some towns looking at spending nearly double what they allotted for snow removal this winter.
“It looks like we’re going to be about $35,000 to $50,000 over our normal amount by the time the winter is over,” Beckley Recorder/Treasurer Gary Sutphin said, stressing he won’t know the final numbers until the last of the snow has fallen.
“We’re not doing too bad with salt — we’re just about close to budget with that — but the unexpected overtime and other costs have put us over budget,” Sutphin said.
Fortunately, Beckley has set aside money in the city’s overall budget for unforeseen costs, Sutphin said. “We are in a position that, when things like this happen, we can handle it.”
This winter’s continued barrage of snowstorms has kept Beckley’s fleet of 12 trucks extremely busy, Robert Robertson, chairman of Beckley’s Board of Public Works, said.
“We’ve worked day and night, 12-hour shifts. We’ve moved a lot of snow out of downtown,” he said. “We’ve held up pretty good, but there’s no way we could have anticipated what this winter would be like. It’s been rough on us.”
Lewisburg Mayor John Manchester said his town is already more than $30,000 over its snow removal budget for the year.
“By the time the winter’s done, it’ll be pushing pretty close to doubling” the town’s normal $48,000 budget for snow removal, he said.
Manchester described this winter’s weather as “relentless,” but added, “we’ve kept ahead of it.” Employees kept the town’s 11 trucks working around the clock during snowstorms, and, as of last week, 500 dump truck loads of snow had been hauled out of the downtown area.
“We’ve dumped all that snow into some pretty amazing piles behind the Public Works Building,” the mayor said with a laugh.
Fayetteville Town Superintendent Bill Lanham said he’d doubled the town’s salt order for this year, anticipating a bad winter, but still had to request more salt from the state Division of Highways.
Lanham said Fayetteville has definitely gone over its snow removal budget, but said he was still calculating the numbers and couldn’t estimate a final total.
Fayetteville’s three trucks have logged many hours since the Dec. 18-19 storm “and the five or six major events we’ve had since,” Lanham said. “I personally drove a dump truck to help haul snow out of downtown in December.
“It’s been an ongoing battle with the elements this winter, but I’d put our guys up against anybody in the state,” Lanham said. “They deserve a big pat on the back.”
The officials expressed hope the region has seen the last of this winter’s major snowstorms.
“We’re hoping it’s pretty much played out for the year,” Manchester said. “And above all, we hope that, once the snow stops falling, it melts very slowly.”
— E-mail: bjohnson@register-herald.com
