Friday, February 12, 2010

A Bureaucrat's Aside Re: Snow Budgeting

For those of you that are into this kind of thing, the 2010 City of Pittsburgh budget for road salt is $559,640, down $400,000 from last year.

I wonder how much of that is already spent. Or, alternatively, I wonder if this is part of the reason I haven't seen a damned salt truck on my street yet!

4 comments:

NutellaonToast said...

You mean a massive fiscal crisis leads to a cut back in services? Nooooooooooooooo.....

Bram Reichbaum said...

Yes, but at least we spent the fleet fuel surplus on the workforce equity study!

Giles Howard said...

NutellaonToast doesn't have it quite right. City revenue increased by more than $5.6 million in this year's budget and City expenditures increased by almost $10 million.

Cutting road salt spending wasn't a result of across-the-board spending cuts or a fiscal crisis. It was a poor choice made by a City government with a terrible record on snow removal.

Unknown said...

Most municipalities will budget extra for winter maintenance just in case you have this kind of winter, if you don't spend it you can use it to pave more roads, handle other capital improvements, emergency expenditures like a landslide, or build a surplus for major capital expenditures like bridges.