Long Island towns, villages blow through snow budgets, eye reserves, state aid

In 13 years as Brookhaven's highway superintendent, Dan Losquadro has seen his share of fierce winter weather.

This week's blizzard ranks "right at the top," he said.

“Those predawn hours, those were the worst driving [conditions] I’ve ever experienced in my life,” Losquadro said.

The blizzard also brought peril to town, village and city finances. Now, he and other municipal highway chiefs are left to figure out how to pay for it.

It'll take weeks to calculate the cost of this week's storm, Long Island town, city and village officials said on Tuesday.

Some municipalities have already busted their snow removal budgets for the year. The allotments cover spending for plow drivers, sand and salt, as well as private contractors.

The recent blizzard will only deepen the financial hole.

Earlier this month, Brookhaven reported it had spent $5.4 million on snow removal, exceeding its budget by $2 million. The storm from Sunday through Monday is likely to add another $2 million to the deficit, Losquadro said in an interview. 

“This is certainly going to be an expensive storm,” he said.

Officials said their annual snow budgets are based on seasonal trends over a period of several years. They were not financially prepared, they noted, for a record-setting storm that dumped about 29.1 inches of snow at Long Island MacArthur Airport in Ronkonkoma.

Reserves, help eyed

Some town and village officials said they expect to draw down more of their reserves and seek state disaster aid. 

East Hampton village trustees recently approved a $60,000 boost to the snow budget, which will be used to hire contractors to help employees remove snow, Village Administrator Marcos Baladrón said. They truck snow from the village’s business district and major roads to Two Mile Hollow Beach, where it’s left to melt, he said.

Riverhead Highway Superintendent Mike Zaleski said his salt supply is now “comfortable.” He recently ordered another 300 tons after a $100,000 budget transfer from reserves.

“Safety to me is paramount,” Zaleski said on Tuesday. “Whether the money is there or not, the job’s got to get done. We’ll find a way to pay.”

Patchogue Mayor Paul Pontieri said the South Shore village has spent over $150,000 on snow removal, more than double its $70,000 budget. Pontieri said he plans to seek state disaster aid to cover the spending.

“What snow budget?" he said on Tuesday. "That thing went out the window two snowstorms ago.” 

The City of Glen Cove already has depleted its snow budget “and is currently operating in a deficit position,” said Roni Jenkins, a city spokeswoman. The city has spent about $320,000 to date.

The Village of Mineola spent $243,688 for snow removal before this week's blizzard, almost double the $138,500 it budgeted this year, Mayor Paul Pereira said. 

Mineola deployed about 40 workers over more than 30 hours Sunday into Monday, the mayor said.

“As you could imagine, 40 guys getting double time, or time-and-a-half, that’s going to blow through that budget,” Pereira said.

In Farmingdale, Mayor Ralph Ekstrand said the village had racked up $104,000 in snow costs since Jan. 1 — significantly more than the $75,000 that was budgeted. That total is expected to rise as workers continue to remove large snow mounds from Main Street, he said.

Southold Town officials had tapped $80,000 in reserves for more salt and sand ahead of the blizzard. The town had budgeted $185,000 for those supplies for the year, officials said.

“It’s what Mother Nature gives us,” Southold Supervisor Al Krupski said in an interview on Tuesday. “We are prepared for that financially.”

Labor costs

In Southampton Town, highway workers make overtime when town offices are closed, which was the case on Monday and Tuesday, Highway Superintendent Charlie McArdle said.

“The crews started at 3 o'clock on Sunday. They haven't stopped,” McArdle said in an interview Tuesday morning. Around 40 town employees and 20 contractors were out plowing, he said.

East Hampton Town Administrator Becky Hansen said the town is “lucky to have healthy fund balances to address any shortfalls” created by snowstorms. Earlier this month, the town used $210,000 from reserves to restore depleted snow funds.

Shelter Island Highway Superintendent Ken Lewis said he pushes for a larger snow budget each year. But the figure has remained stagnant in recent years, with the assurance from board members that reserves can close a gap in an emergency. 

“The weather's out of our control. It's an impossible thing to predict," Lewis said. "But I'd say … pad the snow budgets a little more." 

On Tuesday afternoon, Vincent Piccoli, Babylon Town’s public works commissioner, said town workers had only slept eight hours each since starting snow removal efforts at 4 p.m. on Sunday.

“When a storm drops a historic amount of snow like this, our residents understand that public safety has to come first,” Babylon Town spokesman Ryan Bonner said. 

In the Village of Northport, officials estimated in an email that payroll for the recent storm was more than $61,000. For the next three days, crews will be coming in at midnight and working straight through until 3:30 p.m.

Northport officials said it costs the village $4,914.80 per day for highway and park employees' regular eight-hour shifts. Village workers logged 361 hours in overtime from Sunday through Tuesday morning, totaling nearly $21,000.

Town and village snow budgets aren't out of the woods yet. The National Weather Service said the region could see a wintry mix Wednesday and Thursday, though less than an inch of accumulation is expected. 

The region has seen significant snowfall as late as April, and there's also potential for snow in November and December.

“All in all, it's been fine, but it's definitely been a long winter,” Lewis, the Shelter Island superintendent, said. “I'm ready for a thaw.”

Newsday's Denise M. Bonilla, Deborah S. Morris, Joshua Needelman, Joseph Ostapiuk, and Tara Smith contributed to this story.