January snow sets city of Yakima back $415,000

YAKIMA, WASH. -- The January snow storms cost the city of Yakima $415,000, according a staff report prepared for the City Council.

That's in the ballpark of the $425,000 estimate that city officials had offered shortly after the storm, which started Jan. 18 and dropped snow over the next several days.

The biggest single share of the cost -- $250,000 -- went to contractors hired to plow snow from residential streets.

City crews can usually handle an average storm on their own, but continuing snowfall this time kept them busy with arterial streets, interim city manager Michael Morales told the council last week.

Of the rest, $103,000 went to materials, such as sand and deicer; $42,000 went to overtime; and $20,000 was paid to bring in staff from other city divisions to augment the street crews.

Public works director Chris Waarvick said he believes the city handled the storm well.

According to the staff report, the public works department will likely need to ask the council to approve drawing from the streets reserve fund. The annual snow-removal budget is about $400,000.

The $15,000 overrun was temporarily drawn from within the existing budget in order to respond to the storm. Any additional amount will depend on how bad the weather is for the rest of the year.

The street reserve is set at more than $1 million and is larger by percentage than other city reserves because of the potential for unexpected costs, acting finance manager Cindy Epperson said.