TRAVERSE CITY -- Area road commissions are quickly burning through money and resources, thanks to a hard, early winter with lots of snow and cold.
Seemingly constant snow blanketed the Grand Traverse region since mid-November. The winter tourism industry may be thrilled, but road commission managers nervously eye weather forecasts and their financial spreadsheets.
"We are definitely running through our budget at a furious pace," said Mary Gillis, manager of the Grand Traverse County Road Commission. "And there's nothing we can do about it. We have to deal with what comes."
Gillis estimates the commission has spent what it would through January of a normal year. The commission spent just more than $1 million in November and December, compared to about $715,000 in the same period last year, said Harold D. Kelly, its finance director.
Benzie County is in no better shape, Benzie road commission Manager Bob Weaver said. Weaver hopes the winter will soften in the coming months.
"This has been killing us," he said. "As of right now, 60 percent of our budget is gone ... we're hoping to have an open period here to let us try and regroup."
Overtime has been lethal to Benzie's budget, Weaver said. In Grand Traverse, the commission began before Christmas to tap private sub-contractors to handle some road plowing duties. The move, tried for the first time this year, is expected to slash overtime costs, Gillis said.
The more money spent in winter, the less money is available next summer, managers said. Grand Traverse is on a calendar year budget and Benzie runs on an October through October fiscal year, but both Gillis and Weaver said 2009 summer repairs and maintenance will take a big hit.
Benzie's commission will assess things at the end of winter and then plan for summer projects.
"We'll deal with this winter, and whatever happens in the summer will happen," Weaver said.
But there will be a silver lining if the harsh winter never lets up.
"The constant cold is better than the freeze and thaw, that's what's going to kill the roads," Gillis said. "If we have a lot of that, we're going to have a lot of pot holes."
Leelanau County is in relatively good shape so far, Manager Herb Cradduck said, in large part because of a long standing, voter-approved millage that provides about $1 million a year for road commission operations.
"It's huge, it's huge," he said. "When you talk a million dollars, it makes a big difference on whether or not the roads will be plowed every day."
Voters shot down the Benzie commission's request for a similar millage in 2007.
"They're telling me I've got to work within my budget, and that's what I'm going to do," Weaver said. "We don't have a choice."
