Blizzard taps suburban snow funds, but fails to bust budgets
As bad as the blizzard was, with costs still being tallied up, suburban leaders say it's not a civic budget buster — not yet, anyway, and not if the groundhog's prediction of an early spring proves true.
“A snow this size is not anything you can budget for,” said Palatine Village Manager Reid Otteson. “But we have our overall budget for winter conditions. So if we don't get any more snow this year, it all works out fine in the end. Some years you spend a lot more, some years you spend less.”
That sentiment was echoed across the suburbs.
“We all budget for the whole snow period,” said Barry Krumstok, acting city manager of Rolling Meadows. “Up to this point, most of the snows we've had have been light and with icing.”
While that meant some cost savings, the recent weather will mean the opposite.
“Any time you have a full call-out for several days, it's really going to cost some money,” said Schaumburg Village Manager Ken Fritz, talking about the all-hands-on-deck approach to plowing and salting streets. “It's not the kind of thing where it's over in 24 hours, so you've got manpower on the streets. Even (Friday) we're out there plowing snow.”
Most suburbs, however, have staff and equipment on hand, so the extra costs of handling a blizzard come in overtime and additional salt — something they've already budgeted for based on experience.
Fritz said Schaumburg had budgeted $600,000 for overtime, and for the fiscal year ending June 30 they'd used just over half of that before the storm. “So even with this snowstorm, with reasonable winter weather following, we should be around our budget, I would suspect,” he said.
He said the budget is based on a five- or six-year average, so the overtime spending plan is based on that overall trend. “If it hadn't been for this blizzard, we probably would have come in under budget this year,” Fritz said.
“It's still going to have an impact, obviously,” he said, “but it's not going to create a situation where we have to reduce things in any other areas.”
In Lombard, Village President William Mueller said they're still within budget, “but we're closing in on it.”
Others village leaders said that even if they did run over budget for snow removal, it was something they could address with minimal trouble.
Otteson said in a worst-case scenario some Palatine projects could be delayed, and Mueller said funds could be shifted from one account to another, although he expected increased revenues thanks to the improving economy to cover any additional snow-removal costs.
Lake Zurich Village Administrator Bob Vitas said they would be using budgeted funds, adding, “We have a contingency account that we will also likely be using.”
Coming early in February, the blizzard figured to create more difficulties for governments working on a calendar fiscal year, like Palatine and Elgin, than for those with midyear beginnings of the fiscal year, which were most likely working with a snow-fund surplus before the storm.
Even so, Elgin Chief Financial Officer Colleen Lavery said it wasn't anything they couldn't deal with. “We'll go to departments and ask what we don't have to spend on this year,” she added. “We may have to use some of our reserves.”
All insisted there was no other option. “You're not looking at the budget when you're trying to protect your residents,” said Arlington Heights Mayor Arlene Mulder. “Keeping track of costs is always a key thing, but public safety is first and foremost.”
Mulder estimated at this point the village was “probably very close to the amount we planned” for snow removal.
“Our responsibility is to provide safety to our residents, and we will continue to do that,” Mueller said. “Even if we go over budget, we're not going to stop if we get another snowfall.”
All of the government officials said they were still tallying up the numbers for last week's storm as plowing and snow removal extend into this week.
“We don't run those like a tote board,” said Mount Prospect Village Manager Mike Janonis.
Yet he estimated the village's costs at $25,000, and Otteson said it could run to “six figures” in Palatine.
The tally is important not just for budget ledgers, but in case a federal disaster area is declared, making the region eligible for federal relief funds. Gov. Pat Quinn started the process by declaring a state disaster area, but it will require a federal declaration as well to release funding.
“The governor did his part,” Krumstok said. “We're just hoping for President Obama to do his part.”
“It's something that may result,” Otteson said. “We're tracking all of our costs that are going into this — our labor costs, our equipment costs, our material costs — and if there's a declaration where funds are available we've have the material all ready to go.”
“If they're available we'll apply for them,” Mueller said. “But if it's anything like the federal funds that were coming our way for the flooding we had last July, I'm not going to hold my breath.”
In any case, to a person they hoped that the worst was over.
“It's within our overall budget,” Janonis said of the blizzard's impact on Mount Prospect. “Now, if we get a series of storms moving through the rest of the season, it could bump us over our budget amount.”
“I think all the mayors are thinking the groundhog didn't see his shadow this year,” Mueller said, “so we're looking for an early spring for sure.”
Daily Herald staff writer Jake Griffin contributed to this report.
Budgets: Leaders hoping for federal funding too