Costs for Clearing Snow in Kent Almost Unchanged for Past 2 Years

The total costs of clearing salt and snow from Kent's roads in the past two years might surprise you.

The city paid almost the exact amount throughout the whole of 2010 as it did in 2009 to pay plow drivers, buy salt and maintain equipment.

In 2010, cleaning up after snowstorms cost Kent a total $317,852. In 2009, the same work cost the city $317,919 — a difference of about $67, according to figures from the service department.

Part of the savings in 2010 was related to salt usage.

Kent Service Director Gene Roberts said the city used less salt because plow trucks were equipped with steel-edge plow blades as the rubber-edge blades wore out. The steel edge blades can cut through packed snow easier and therefore cut down on salt usage compared with rubber-edge blades.

So the city spent less on salt in 2010 compared with 2009. Overall material costs — primarily salt — in 2010 were about $40,000 less than 2009.

However, that material savings was eaten up by increased labor costs. The city's union employees received a 2.75 percent pay raise in 2010 over 2009. So comparing labor costs, the city spent $129,181 in 2009, mostly on snowplow drivers, compared with $168,890 in 2010 — a difference of about $40,000.

What makes the comparison even more interesting is the total snowfall in both years. In 2010, Kent recorded 102 inches of snowfall. In 2009, only 62 inches of snow accumulated across the city.

So the city spent more per inch of snow that fell in 2009 compared with 2010 — about $2,000 more per inch.

Had Kent seen the same amount of snow in 2009 as 2010, plowing and salting the city's streets could have cost a total $524,054 at that rate, Roberts said.