Town Budgets Strain Under the Weight of Heavy Snowfall

With more snow looming around the corner, local towns are facing concerns when it comes to their snow budgets.

In Somers, First Selectwoman Lisa Pellegrini says that that town is in decent shape right now.

"Right now we do have money to plow the roads," she said. "We just purchased 600 tons of salt so we’re fine with the materials and that was a cost of approximately $45,000 so we’re set with that. I do have about $10,000 left in overtime salaries. We hired some temporary, part-time plow drivers so I have about $4,500 left in that account. And then I’m still doing pretty good with my highway salaries and everything. We’re weathering the storm really well. Right now we’re doing okay."

Pellegrini said that the last storm really took a big chunk out of the overtime budget however.

"So we’re hoping that this new storm that’s coming up will hopfully miss us and go out to sea," she said. "We really don’t know what to expect. If you look into see the costs of the last big storm, I have enough money in overtime and temporary budgets to have one big doozy storm or two smaller storms."

She added, "We just have about five more weeks of really bad winter so let’s just keep our fingers crossed."

Ellington First Selectman Maurice Blanchette says that Ellington is in good shape at the moment but that that may change.

“We’re still okay, but that’s assuming that winter ends now," he said. "Our snow budget certainly runs out of money at some point, what happens at that point, is that the department of Public Works director comes before the Board of Selectmen and the Board of Finance and says, ‘Look, I need a special appropriation here, because I'v got no choice’…it’s either that or we can’t open the roads…and we can’t tolerate that.”

If the next five weeks are like the last few however, the budget will get very tight.

"I’m going to start hitting some of my regular accounts, but we’ll see what happens," Pellegrini said. "At least they have the salt. That’s fine, we’re budgeted for that. " 

Thursday morning, Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security Commissioner Peter J. Boynton discussed the possibility of the state receiving federal assistance to help replenish some of the money spent on the Jan. 11 and 12 storm.

On Friday evening, the commissioner said although it is possible, even probable, that the state will meet the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) criteria necessary to receive the aid, he hopes that municipal leaders are able to manage the expectations of their residents.

“We feel very strongly that the circumstances were such that we could be eligible. We now need to collect the data and accurately assess whether we’re in the game,” Boynton said.

The last time the state worked with municipalities on such an application was in the spring of 2010, when much of the state was ravaged by torrential rain that caused severe flooding. Although the state’s first application was rejected, Connecticut leaders filed an appeal and eventually the state was granted about $18 million that was dispersed to various municipal and state agencies and individuals who lost property during the rain storm.

“We know how to do this. Now it comes down to whether we meet the criteria set by FEMA, which is different for snowstorms,” Boynton said.

In November 2009, FEMA established new rules, which Boynton referred to as somewhat Byzantine, for snowstorms in respect to eligibility for federal disaster assistance. Although there are many items on the checklist, two basic factors considered are snowfall amounts and cost thresholds.

The snowfall amounts must be affirmed by an official source, not a yardstick. State officials are working with the National Weather Service to acquire official snowfall tallies by county for the mid-January storm. They are also working with their counterparts in Alaska to interpret the FEMA rules. If the results are at or near record amounts for most counties then the state could have met the first basic criteria. 

The second – cost thresholds – can be tricky to determine. This is where the state is relying heavily on municipal officials to come through with accurate calculations on items such as money spent on snow removal, overtime, sand and salt and other functions directly related to the storm response and which occurred within a 48 hour period of the storm. The state needs this information by Wednesday.

Once that is compiled, state officials will determine whether each county met or exceeded its spending threshold requirements, which are:

• Fairfield County, $2.9 million
• Hartford County, $2.8 million
• New Haven County, $2.7 million
• New London County, $847,000
• Litchfield County, $595,000
• Middlesex County, $507,000
• Tolland County, $446,000
• Windham County, $356,000

In addition to the county calculations, a second tiered statewide threshold of $4.4 million must also be met in order to be eligible.

It’s a lot of number crunching and paperwork, but officials agree there is a significant incentive to get it done, particularly in light of the state’s deficit and the anticipated funding issues in many towns. If the state is eligible for federal funding, the towns and state departments could be reimbursed 75 percent of what was spent to manage and clean up after the storm.

For this reason, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy director the state emergency management department to get the application process going and quickly – they have about 30 days, with the possibility of an extension, to submit the application.

“Judging by the conference call I’d say there is a lot of participation and cooperation from the municipalities … we couldn’t do it without their involvement,” Boynton said, adding that about 177 people were part of Thursday’s conference call.

Pellegrini participated in the conference call and is hoping to receive some of the aid money.

"I’m hoping, I would love, to be able to get some federal aid for that but we’ll see," she said. "We’re in the process of pulling together all of the information that’s required and we’ll get that off. Hopefully we’ll get something back."

In terms of money, Blanchette is unclear at this point what the town would receive from FEMA if it was eligible. 

“Public works has already put together roughly $75,000 in qualifying expenses in applying for this program," he said. "I don’t know what that means in terms of how much reimbursement we’d get for that.”

Pellegrini said that the key to getting aid that is that every municipality in the state has to reply. 

"It’s very important for the whole state to reply and that’s why the state has been very communicative about this," she said. "They had the conference call and they’re trying to get all this out."

So for now, everyone will sit and wait to see what happens.

Ellington-Somers Patch contributor contributed to this article.