Big money spent on big snowfalls in January

VERNON – The bean counters at city hall totalled up the taxpayer dollars spent to deal with the huge snowfalls in Vernon in January and it wasn’t cheap.

According to a report to city council, it cost $631,000 to plow the roads and sidewalks, and then haul the piles of snow away. The bill also covers the money spent to hire private contractors who bolstered city crews especially during the near record breaking snowfall on Jan. 4, 2015.

That works out to almost 70 per cent of the annual snow and ice budget for the year ahead.

City council has bumped up the budget for this year to cover the extra costs from January. Any money not spent during the year goes into a reserve for a similarily snowy day in the future.

To contact the reporter for this story, email Howard Alexander at halexander@infonews.ca or call 250-491-0331. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.