City reckons with cost of frost

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This article was published 22/04/2022 (1430 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The City of Winnipeg looks set to nearly double its 2022 snow-clearing budget, after heavy blankets wrapped the capital during the first three months of the year.

On Thursday, council’s finance committee cast a final vote to approve a $34.2-million public works overrun, which was blamed solely on snow and ice control costs. The cost hike nearly matches the entire $34.7-million snow-clearing budget set for the entire year.

As a result, the tab is now expected to rise to $68.9 million from $34.7 million — though the public works committee must still vote today on doling out the cash for specific contracts.

By the end of March, the city had already spent $50.4 million to clear, haul and dispose of snow in just three months, while April costs have yet to be added up.

Coun. Jeff Browaty, who heads the finance committee, said the vast amount of precipitation was expected to have a notable impact on the city’s bottom line.

“We have a snow policy and we can’t shut Winnipeg down because of snow. We have to remove the snow, regardless of budget… It’s about making sure that Winnipeg continues to function,” said Browaty.

Forty-three centimetres of snow fell on the city in January, followed by 50 cm in February. Another 12 cm fell in March, though “a significant portion” of snow-clearing costs for that month were spent on hauling snow, as well as opening ditches/culverts and thawing catch basins, according to a city report.

“Crews have been very busy this winter on snow-clearing and ice control activities in response to numerous and back-to-back snow storms… (and) this winter additional residential plowing operations were required due to extremely heavy accumulations of snow and ice,” Ken Allen, a public works spokesperson, said in an emailed statement.

Allen said the city has hauled more than 1.7 million cubic metres of snow to disposal sites since the beginning of 2022, in order to reduce piles on streets and at intersections.

While the city typically completes two residential plows per winter, it completed four this season, including two since Jan. 1, noted Allen.

Since New Year’s Day, it also plowed main routes four times, while clearing bus routes and collector streets five times.

Under city policy, snow removal and ice control are completed to meet set standards, which are not restricted by budget limits.

If savings can’t be found to offset the extra costs by the end of this year, the city expects to use its so-called “rainy day fund” to pay for the overrun.

Staff told the finance committee the over-expense must be approved now so the city can pay its snow-clearing contractors.

The budget hike would include $18.5 million to clear snow throughout the rest of 2022.

“As there are nine months remaining in the year, further adjustments may be required at a later date,” Jason Ruby, public works manager of finance and administration, writes in the report.

The finance committee unanimously approved the overrun Thursday. However, one member questioned if the excessive snowfall prevented clearing crews from meeting city standards.

“There was high dissatisfaction and quite obvious examples of what, frankly, was not council-directed policy. I had massive eight-foot snow banks on downtown sidewalks,” said Coun. Sherri Rollins.

After the meeting, Rollins told the Free Press one snow pile still blocked part of a sidewalk at Queen Elizabeth Way earlier this week, triggering concerns from residents of her ward.

“We had an unprecedented amount of snow but we also had an unprecedented amount of questioning the snow removal and ice control policy,” she said.

Allen said “all available resources” were used to achieve the level of service set out in city policy, but confirmed that standard wasn’t always met this winter.

“This was a challenging year with extreme weather conditions (in all parameters: accumulation, temperatures, snowing days, wind) where we were not able to achieve all defined levels of service.”

Today, council’s public works committee will be asked to formally approve the extra spending on specific snow-clearing contracts and consider a call to let the public service approve snow contracts worth up to $7 million each, instead of $5 million each.

“The recommendation will put authority in place to pay contractors for services rendered in April without needing to call another special meeting for that purpose… We do not expect to get to the ($7-million limit) on any of the contracts, however, we need to put authority in place to pay our April invoices,” said Allen.

joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @joyanne_pursaga