The Town of Black Diamond is already $8,000 over its 2017 snow removal budget after a snowy January.
Contracted snow removal services for the Town totaled $28,005 last month, putting it $8,005 over its budget for this year, said Sharlene Brown, Black Diamond chief administrative officer.
As a result, Black Diamond Town council agreed Feb. meeting to transfer $64,000 from its reserve funds into the snow removal and weather-related budget in anticipation of snow removal costs for the Feb. 3-6 snowfall and for the rest of the year.
Each year, the Town transfers unused snow removal funds into an operating reserve fund for use in another year. The account’s balance sat at $164,913.14 before the transfer was approved by council.
Brown said Town administration needs further direction from councilors about how to proceed for the rest of the year.
“Council needs to have a conversation around how much snow removal do they want,” said Sharlene Brown, Black Diamond chief administrative officer. “Administration needs direction because there’s already an overage of $8,000 for January, plus what we just expended at this point in time. Typically our biggest snowfall is in March.”
Brown said the existing snow removal policy states that snow must be plowed and removed following a snowfall of 10 cm or more and that all streets within the town be cleared, with higher priority streets first on the list.
“Maybe they want to change it to 15 or 20 cm before we remove snow or they want to move it lower based on the amount it costs,” she said. “Ultimately it hits the tax base.”
Brown said the Town spent an annual average of $44,000 on snow removal during the past six years, but that it hasn’t had to utilize its reserves in three years.
She added that while the Town uses its own equipment and staff to plow the snow, it contracts out the actual removal of snow from streets across the community.
“We do not have all of the equipment nor the manpower to be able to remove snow on a regular basis in a timely fashion where it would provide effective snow removal services,” she said.
Coun. Ruth Goodwin said she believes snow removal expenses balance out over time as some years have large amounts of snowfall and others very little. Still, council needs to be cognizant of increasing costs, she said.
“The cost of snow removal is going up so we have to decide if we are going to bump this up to 15 cm or 20 cm,” said Goodwin.
Coun. Jackie Stickel said council should determine how much snow removal has cost the Town in past years before making any decisions.
“Maybe we should do some investigating first so we know what happened in the past,” she said. “If it isn’t a big deal and things are okay maybe we don’t need to go to public consultation. Maybe we just leave it and if we do an open house in the fall for anything we need to make sure it becomes part of that.”
In the event that council wants to move ahead with some changes, Stickel said the public should be consulted first.
“If snow removal costs $70,000 a year every year then that impacts taxes, so the expectation of the taxpayer needs to be known at the same time,” she said.
Counc. Brian Marconi agreed that the public should be engaged before any changes are made to snow removal policy – whether it be the amount of snowfall that dictates snow removal or if some streets shouldn’t experience snow removal.
“I think we have to go to the public and engage them,” he said. “If you go to just priority one or two areas of snow removal that means residential streets don’t get touched. It could save us money in taxes but the residents expectations might vary.”
