Snow in June?
The topic of snow removal prompted a flurry of discussion at Wednesday’s city council meeting.
To try to reduce the snow and ice control budget, which is set at $10.3 million for 2024, council has directed city staff to provide the budget impact of not clearing driveways, reducing snow removal services on stat holidays during the Christmas season and increasing the minimum thresholds of 24-hour snowfalls at which city plowing crews are activated.
The city will look at changing the threshold of equipment activation from 7.5 centimetres to 10 cm (in a 24-hour period) for main arteries/downtown/hospital area/major facilities and from 12 to 15 centimetres for residential streets.
Coun. Tim Bennett said a big dump during the Christmas season that puts city crews and contractors to work on stat holidays can put a huge strain on the city’s resources. Previous council discussions revealed that a heavy snow declaration during Christmas could drain as much as $1 million from the annual budget due to the overtime hours involved in staffing the crews.
City staff were directed to look into a strategy that would reduce the hours crews will work on those days.
Reduced service during Christmas could create hazards for first responders and Coun. Brian Skakun said that has to be taken under consideration.
Trying to find ways to cut the snow budget while maintaining street safety and the taxpaying public’s desire for swift responses to major snowfalls is a balancing act city planners struggle with constantly, said Blake McIntosh, director of civic operations.
“We have bounced those type of ideas around for years,” said McIntosh.
“Recently it seems that those kinds of statutory holidays, especially through the Christmas season, it’s difficult to get our contractors to commit to working those hours, so we’ve been generally completing those requirements with city staff, and minimum contractors, so there has been a bit of savings there.
“A policy outlines the service levels and we administer our operation based on those service levels so if council desires to change those service levels I suppose we could bring back some options.”
A report received in November during budget consultations identified snow and ice removal as one of the top five priorities in a citizen survey.
Coun. Ron Polillo’s motion was passed for the city to consider the possibility of not clearing driveways as a cost savings measure.
McIntosh explained to council that city crews only open driveways in areas with curbs and gutters plowed by graders and not in outlying areas that are truck-plowed.
To date in 2024, the city has spent $5,972,173 of its $10.3 million snow and ice control budget. In 2023 the city exceeded its $9.8 million budget by $972,443.
Prince George spends $25 per residence per month on snow and ice removal. Coun. Trudi Klassen pointed out that’s less the amount spent per dwelling in St. John’s, Nfld. ($30), but more than Grande Prairie ($12) and three times as much as is spent on clearing winter roads in Thunder Bay, Ont.
