Fuel costs strain towns
Toolbox
By PATRICK McARDLE Herald Staff - Published: July 15, 2008
BENNINGTON — The new fiscal year is only in its early days but several Bennington County towns are already looking ahead with caution after finishing the last fiscal year with greater-than-expected spending for gas, heating oil and road salt.
While most town leaders said their municipalities had finished Fiscal Year 2008 — which ended on June 30 — in the black, all found they had spent more than expected in key areas.
It seems inevitable the same thing will happen in Fiscal Year 2009, according to Dorset Town Manager Peter Webster.
"Our budget was set in the fall. You know what's happened to gas prices between the fall and now," Webster said.
Vermont League of Cities and Town Executive Director Steven Jeffrey said the league had received a number of calls from towns. About half its members follow the standard fiscal year, which begins in July, but a large number of members see themselves having spent their budget or spending their budget for gas and oil.
Jeffrey said the league is advising towns they can try to cut in other areas or borrow from their general fund but they also have the option of sending out another tax bill if they've overspent their budget. According to Jeffrey, no one has — or plans to, as far as he knows — used that option yet.
Bennington Town Manager Stuart Hurd said that while the final figures aren't in yet, it appears the town's highway department will have finished the year over its budget although the overall town budget should be able to absorb any deficit.
Hurd said the town spent more than expected mostly on items that have increased dramatically recently like diesel fuel, heating oil, asphalt and concrete.
While Hurd said Bennington had done "pretty well" with salt, Manchester Town Manager John O'Keefe said his Select Board had budgeted $57,000 for salt and spent $106,000.
Winhall Town Administrator Dennis McCarthy said his town had also been strained by the winter.
"One thing we looked at is that we were $38,000 over in diesel. We had a long winter and we had to do a lot of plowing and sanding. For us, I think most of (the extra spending) was because it was a hard winter and not because fuel prices were raised," he said.
According to Hurd, the Bennington highway department sent out plow and salt or sand trucks to respond to 65 storms over the winter.
O'Keefe said the expectations of Manchester residents made road maintenance costlier in the winter.
"Drivers here are used to the roads being kept 'black and wet,' as it's called, whereas in other communities, I think they're a little more used to there being some snow on the road," he said.
Manchester has been treating its roads with a brine solution which is intended to keep ice from forming with less maintenance while Hurd said he and his staff have been discussing an expansion of one of the strategies employed this year, using more sand than salt.
According to O'Keefe, at least one Manchester project, on Powder Horn Road, scheduled for this fiscal year has been mostly postponed because of rising costs and McCarthy said Winhall would have faced a similar decision if they hadn't received federal highway funds.
Arlington Select Board Chairman Keith Squires said his town's situation was a little different because they use the calendar year as a fiscal year but like other towns, they are planning to cut small road projects, like culvert replacements, that will be cancelled to save money that's expected to be needed when the weather turns cold.
In Shaftsbury, Town Administrator Aaron Chrostowsky said the Select Board planned to spend a large portion of their July 21 meeting discussing their projected deficit. Current projections see the town's fiscal year having ended with a shortage of $60,000.
Shaftsbury's elected officials were working on educating the public on the importance of investing in road maintenance when the increases hit, leaving its road projects "behind the 8-ball," according to Chrostowsky.
Towns that have tried to keep their tax rates down by proposing tight budgets find themselves with little recourse for absorbing unplanned increases.
"We tried to be as responsible as possible to the community, we tried to keep the budget and tax rate as low as possible. We already had a shoestring budget," Chrostowsky said.
Contact Patrick McArdle at patrick.mcardle@rutlandherald.com.
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