Two major blizzards and several smaller snow storms shattered records all across the East Coast, including the Shenandoah Valley. In Harrisonburg, the record of 53 inches of snow in one winter season was broken. Harrisonburg currently has about 53.5 inches with about two weeks remaining in the season.
With the massive snowfall came costs. Harrisonburg far exceeded its budget for snow removal. Director of Public Works Jim Baker told the Harrisonburg City Council that this year’s snowfall “busted” the budget. The city spent almost $800,000, despite only allocating $220,773 for fiscal year 2010. The fiscal year runs from Oct 1 to Sept 31.
“We have to find somewhere to close the gap. We’re still about $300,000 in the hole,” Baker said in a phone interview.
With time still left remaining in this winter season, Baker is concerned that the city will face an even larger snow removal deficit.
“We’re going to have to get the money from somewhere else. It’s up to the city council and city manager to figure out where that money is going to come from. Even if we took every cent from street beautification, for example, we’re still not going to close the gap,” Baker said.
Baker says that no matter what happens, the streets will continue getting cleaned when it snows. The implications will come in other areas of the city budget. He fears vital programs such as downtown Renaissance, which hopes to revitalize the downtown area, could suffer.
“It’s really put us in a tough position. What we’re trying to figure out is if we can get an advance on next year’s funding and then hope it doesn’t snow nearly as much, but who knows,” Baker said.
The massive snowfall has also impacted many school schedules. Harrisonburg City Schools has made plans to make up all missed days by elimiinating teacher workdays and making early release days into regular school days. This is because each school in Virginia must be in session for at least 900 instructional hours. Unless Harrisonburg is hit with even more snow, spring break will remain in place. Rockingham County Schools, which missed over two full weeks of school from different storms, lost much of their spring break in addition to the teacher workdays.
Other regions also broke snowfall records. Baltimore was just one of many cities that broke snowfall records. During the Feb 5 blizzard, citizens were banned from driving on the roadways to make snow removal easier. Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. also shattered their snowfall records.
