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- Category: Past Issues
Towns' snow
budgets are
in good shape
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
Even if Punxsutawney Phil is right and winter graces our corner for six more weeks, local snow removal budgets are doing fine.
Putnam Department of Public Works director Gerard Beausoleil said “we’re in very good shape for the rest of the season.”
He’s sure that material wise (salt and sand) “we’re absolutely fine.” The town budgets about $35,000 for salt and about $51,000 for overtime each year. The town used to budget about $25,000 for sand but now uses sand from Rawson through the town’s gravel removal agreement with Rawson.
There’s an outside chance that more storms will hit and hit at a bad time — nights or weekends — and that requires overtime, he said. He believes it’s unlikely.
Putnam has only 64 miles of road it’s responsible for. “We are one of the smaller towns mile-wise,” Beausoleil said.
The “fairly gentle winter” has been kind to the snow removal budget in Pomfret, too.
First Selectman Jim Rivers said he does not expect that the DPW will have to go overbudget.
The town budgets a figure less than $100,000 for overtime and materials.
“Salt usually goes up (in cost) as does overtime,” he said, but town workers are always “being smart about” their approach to keeping winter roads safe.
Woodstock’s First Selectman Allan D. Walker Jr. said “we’re doing pretty good” with the snow removal budget. A total of $120,000 was budgeted for the year and he does not believe they will hit the $120,000 mark.
Previous years the town budgeted about $80,000 and usually went over, so the line item was raised to $120,000. Walker said the town has used about $70,000 so far. “We don’t expect to use the total,” he said.