City Council approves mayor’s request to deficit spend for snow removal

Date: 2/13/2015

AGAWAM – The snow has been burying Massachusetts towns, making removal a priority to keep roads as safe as possible. The Agawam City Council conducted a special meeting on Feb. 5 and voted to approve Mayor Richard Cohen’s request to spend beyond the budgeted amount for snow removal.

The City Council held the Feb. 5 special meeting in lieu of its regularly scheduled Feb. 2 meeting, which was snowed out.

The approval of the appropriation allows the City of Agawam to deficit spend in the case of additional snowstorms, if needed. Cities and towns are only allowed to deficit spend for snow and ice removal.

Though Cohen said he was unsure of the numbers after the latest storm, he said it was likely that deficit spending would be necessary.

“We were trying to be proactive by getting [the resolution] into the City Council in time,”?Cohen said.

The City Council voted unanimously to approve the appropriation. Before the special meeting and the snow fall coming overnight on Feb. 8 into Feb. 9, the “city’s sand and salt budget was running really low,” according to City Council President Christopher Johnson. He also added that the snowplow appropriations were running low, as well.

The resolution pointed to the rising costs of salt as a large part of the anticipated overspending. The cost of salt jumped from $56.60 per ton to $78.40 per ton. In the 2013-14 winter months, Agawam went through 4,000 tons of salt.

More than half of the snow-related budget is dedicated providing salt and other materials for the city, with $250,000 budgeted for ice control materials.

In addition to the need for salt, the resolution said that the money would be used for the compensation of independent contractors, overtime payment for DPW workers and to purchase “supplementary materials in the event additional storms affect the Town of Agawam.”

The snow and ice overtime budget is $95,000 for the 2015 fiscal year, while the snow equipment rentals budget is $111,000, but Cohen said that safety is the important part.

“With the big storms, it’s very expensive, but when it comes to public safety, you can’t put a cost on it,” Cohen said.