News
December snow storms deplete Madison budget
Looking for a print version?
Simply use your browser’s ‘Print’ command and a printer-friendly document will be generated automatically.
Also by Jacquelyn Ryberg:
- School of Med vice dean warns of 'resource poor' UW in provost presentation (May 28, 2009)
- CALS vice dean makes his pitch for provost position (May 28, 2009)
- 2009 sees big increase in citations at Johnny O's, Madison Ave, Ram Head (April 27, 2009)
- Restorative Justice: Part 2 of 2: Working with students (April 24, 2009)
- Restorative justice: part 1 of 2--Choice of healing or punishment (April 23, 2009)
Sharing tools:
E-mail this article:
With four major snowstorms just in the past few weeks, officials said Madison's annual budget for snow and ice removal is undeniably depleted.
"We've essentially used all of the money that was in our budget for the 2007 calendar year," said George Dreckmann, Madison Streets Division spokesperson. "We will need to get additional funds from some [other] source should things continue the way they are."
According to Al Schumacher, Madison Streets Division Superintendent, the budget for the 2007 year is $4.6 million, with about $300,000 appropriated for each snowstorm.
"The budget is spent," Schumacher said. "But this is an emergency-type situation, and there is not enough time to reappropriate money."
Although city officials cannot determine by how much the budget has been overspent, it is safe to say the overdrawn funds will not impede continued snow clearing, salting and safety precautions.
"The money is spent, but that doesn't mean we are going to stop hauling snow or salting," Schumacher said.
According to Dreckmann, public safety is the No. 1 priority for the city of Madison.
"We've been told to go ahead regardless of the situation and make sure we take care of public safety first," Dreckmann said. "If it's time to go and plow, we'll go and plow."
According to Schumacher, city officials have two possible options to offset additional costs incurred with an already limited budget.
"We are hoping that other agencies will return money from their budgets at the end of the year that they didn't spend," Schumacher said. "Or, bottom line, there is money in the city general fund."
Furthermore, Dreckmann said the contingency fund has approximately $30 million allocated to the budget for rainy day situations like the one Madison currently faces.
In addition to the financial implications the city is facing, citizen safety is also a huge concern.
"I'm concerned about the vision hazards at some intersections. People have to be very careful because the snowplows pull out, and they might not see them," Schumacher said. "Also, I'm concerned about the lack of parking and lack of ability to get emergency vehicles through streets with cars on either side."
However, according to Dreckmann, serious citizen injuries have not been among the issues.
"There have been the kinds of normal things that always go on," Dreckmann said. "We hit a mailbox here or there, but in terms of major injuries I have not seen anything like that reported."
George Twigg, communications director for Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, said the city of Madison will continue to do its job in ensuring public safety.
"Of course it is the responsibility of the city to plow the streets and make sure it's safe for traffic to get around the city," Twigg said. "It has been challenging because we've had an unusual amount of snow, but city plow crews are working hard to make sure things are getting cleaned up."
7 Comments | Leave a comment
Leave a comment
Herald Blogs
The Beat Goes On
Muckrakers
President’s Visit Marked a Speech to One of the Last Groups Not Critical of Him
Extra Points
Top Classified Ads (view all)
HOUSES FOR Fall 2010. All houses are on W Dayton or N Bassett. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8 bedrooms. All have parking. madisoncampusrentals.com
“However, according to Dreckmann, serious citizen injuries have not been among the issues.”
That’s only because we’ve all be extremely lucky. When the city refuses to plow until 10 hours after the storm ends just to save a little money, it’s only a matter of time before somebody dies.
I read this story and could not believe we used this much money on snow storms. The lack of proper road plowing is ridiculous yet we have already run out of the yearly budget. The budget is not small by any means in fact $4.6 million dollars seems like more than enough money to plow every road in Wisconsin much less Dane county. Ive been working in Milwaukee and have driven through these storms on my way to home to Madison as soon as I reach the Madison area the roads worsen 10 fold.
it’s not that they refuse to plow. They don’t have enough workers that want to work overtime. My dad works for the street department. In the past he has gone to work at 6am, and not returned home until 6pm the following day. The guys that are plowing now work 18 hour days in a row. They are human beings, not robots. And with all the morons in this city that can’t follow parking rules it takes that much longer to clean up the streets
To 1:43pm: I would gladly obey the parking regulations if the city would clear the streets so that I could park where I’m supposed to! They other day it took me two hours to move my car because I was getting stuck half the time (not because of the snow, but because of the ice beneath the snow that the city decided to let sit and age after the Dec 1 storm) and half the streets in my neighborhood are undrivable. Half the parking spots are unaccessable because of the snow. This is Wisconsin; you would think we would know how to get rid of snow by now! This is getting rediculous.
maybe you did follow the rules. but they still can’t plow the whole street if others do not.
Madison has by far the worst snow removal in the state of wisconsin. That’s just as a result of budget cuts, they cut the snow removal program in half some years ago and it hasn’t been the same ever since. I just don’t get how cities like milwaukee can have such an efficient and successful program, and our city is so far behind. I guess thanks again mayor dave. BUT at least halloween is safe…
The Midwest and East Coast are freezing. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7146947.stm
Meanwhile an expedition to measure Arctic ice was frozen out and forced to retreat by the bitter cold. It’s clearly global warming.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ adventure/news/liv-arnesen-frostbite.html