City Snow Removal Budget? Not So Much

PHILADELPHIA - None of us will soon forget the blizzard that blanketed our region back on Dec. 19 and 20.

With another big winter storm expected this weekend, the city of Philadelphia is bracing for the financial fallout.

Philly isn't Buffalo. But it's not Miami, either. Snow is a normal part of the winter season. So, naturally, the city of Philadelphia sets aside a pot of money each year to pay for the inevitable snow removal, right?

Well…

The city of Philadelphia spent about $3.5 million cleaning up from the big December snowfall, which left the city with a budget hole of about $3.5 million.

That's right: Mayor Michael Nutter's administration, like others before it, budgets zero for snow removal each year.

"Why is that?" Gordon asked the mayor on Wednesday.

"Because it's impossible to predict in the spring of one year what kind of snow you're going to get in the winter of the next year," Nutter said.

Perhaps, but we know we'll get some. Over the past five full winters, Philly's been hit by five different storms that left more than five inches of snow to be plowed and carted away.

That's not including December's storm.

This season, the Nutter administration will be forced to cover snow removal costs by going to City Council in early spring to find $6 million from other departments.

"It's sort of a mid-year estimate, re-estimate of the budget that understands there are some things we didn't account for, or things that changed on us that we had no control over," Philadelphia Budget Director Steve Agostini said. "Snow falls into that category."

But change is coming. When the mayor reveals his new budget for council on March 4, there will, for the first time, be money specifically set aside for snow removal.

Nutter called it "a little bit of kind of an estimate, placeholder, a certain amount of dollars so you know you can't make any designs on those dollars because that's what they're for."

He added, "There's, you know, always a better way to do something."

The Nutter administration got generally high marks for the speed and skill with which it cleared streets last December.

No, this isn't about how they deal with snow...but how they plan to pay for it.

In New Jersey, where shore communities have been hit hard this winter, the state Department of Transportation said it has spent nearly $15 million so far this winter on eleven separate storms or threats.

They're already dipping into a reserve fund set up for snow removal.

If this weekend's storm is a big one, the next storm after that would likely force NJDOT to go to the legislature and beg for more money – money lawmakers do not have, Gordon reported.