Excluding this last week, it’s been a rather-mild winter for Michiganders, and state, city and county agencies are expecting to save a fair amount of money due to the lack of snow.
Less than seven inches of snowfall have hit Ypsilanti so far. The National Climate Data Center estimates an average of 14 inches normally falls on the Detroit Metro area by now. This relatively dry winter could lead to money saved for local governments.
The Washtenaw County Road Commission, for example, could save hundreds of thousands of dollars this year on things like sand, salt, fuel and maintenance and overtime wages for the 65-qualified commercial drivers the county would usually have plowing the streets.
Even with the small amount of snow that has fallen, the WCRC still has teams on the road to make the commute in the county manageable for drivers.
“We’ve been getting these light snows, we refer to them as ‘salt suckers’,” the director of operations at WCRC, Jim Harmon, said. “It really doesn’t accumulate, but we still have to stay out and scrape anyway.”
Harmon has confirmed the county is saving money, even though he cannot say how much yet.
The WCRC no longer has a specific winter budget to point at, instead the county budgets for items, like salt, sand, trucks and blades. Harmon said a winter season could cost the county around $2.5 to 3 million a year.
“Our accountants are working on the year-end budget right now,” Harmon said and was able to give an idea of how considerable the savings might be.
“We’ll go through about 20,000 tons of salt [in a winter],” Harmon said.
“About 6,000 tons in the months of November and December. In 2011, we’ve only used about 1,800 tons.”
Any money saved will stay within the WCRC, who will use it mainly to maintain the roads in Washtenaw County. This does not necessarily include the roads inside the cities and townships.
The City of Ypsilanti Public Service Department, who declined to comment, has its own fleet of trucks and drivers they use to clear the roads.
This money will go a long way toward helping out the WCRC spread out its $22 million budget, which has shrunk considerably from the last few years. WCRoads.org reports the county revenue has shrunk about $10 million from $32 million in 2009 to $22 million in 2010.
Most of the money for snow removal in southeast Michigan comes from the state run Michigan Transportation Fund, a $1.8 billion dollar program that is shared by all the counties in the state for road maintenance.
According to the available budget report documents at www.michigan.gov, the
Michigan Transportation Fund is paid for by specific taxes, such as sales tax at the fuel pump and weight taxes charged at the Secretary of State for vehicle registration.
