Snow season dollars vary with snow levels

Shoveling snow on Main Street.

With the 2015-16 snow season underway following a previous year of little, Whitman County Public Works is back on the roads with plows and graders.

After last year, are they flush with money?

Public Works budgets $640,000 for snow and ice removal with an average of $250,000 used each year. The rest goes into reserves.

“Last year certainly was a low number,” said Mark Storey, Whitman County Public Works Director. “But frost, de-icing, it still costs money even when it’s not snowing.”

The $640,000 budgeted for fiscal year 2015 – Jan. 1 to Dec. 31 – is still being u...