CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. - The winter of 2017-18 has been an easy one on the City of Charlottetown’s snow clearing equipment.
But, while the city acknowledges it is saving money it isn’t saying how much.
Coun. Terry Bernard, chairman of the public works committee, said it's not quite that easy.
Bernard explained Thursday that the city budgeted $3.8 million for snow clearing in 2017, which covered the calendar year, January to December. He said even though November and December were light in terms of snowfall, the city basically spent that $3.8 million thanks to a bad January to March.
As part of the new Municipal Government Act, the city is now in a March to March budget period. But because the last budget only went to December, the city will be starting off with a 15-month budget that covers January 2018 to March 2019.
It won’t be known how much the city’s snow budget is until council votes on the annual budget on March 21.
“What you’re seeing now is a lot of heaving (on roads) and so on because (the salt) gets in the cracks. What you save in one (way) usually goes out the other.’’
-Terry Bernard
However, Bernard said it isn’t difficult to see the city is saving money on snow clearing, so far.
“Well, we have a month to go this (winter),’’ Bernard cautioned.
The public works chairman explained that the contractors get paid regardless of whether there’s no snow or a lot of snow. The contractors that handle the sidewalks also get paid no matter what.
“Our saving would be in our own forces by not having to go out with the equipment and gas costs and hauling snow from the downtown. There would be a savings there because we haven’t had to do a lot of that. That money would just go back into general revenue.’’
But, where the city saves on hauling and blowing snow it spends on laying down brine and salt thanks to what this winter has thrown at P.E.I. -- a constant cycle of warm and cold temperatures.
“What you’re seeing now is a lot of heaving (on roads) and so on because (the salt) gets in the cracks. What you save in one (way) usually goes out the other.’’
So, money the city is saving now could get wiped out if it has a bad winter in 2018-19 (which is also covered in the current budget year).
“We are see a cost savings (now),’’ Bernard said. “There’s no question about that and usually that cost savings tends to go into asphalt because we tend to use more salt because you get more of the freeze-thaw cycle.’’
