After a week jam-packed with winter-weather, the New Hampshire Department of Transportation says it’s eating its way through the snow removal budget for the year. The winter is only 65 percent finished, but the snow removal budget is already 80 percent gone.
“So $42 million dollar budget we’d spent $33 million dollars,” says DOT spokesman Bill Boynton, who notes that the legislature’s fiscal committee has already given the DOT a $2.25 million dollar transfer from the highway fund. “We’ll probably have to go back for more before we’re done this winter,” Boynton speculates.
Boynton says the 3-year rolling average for snowfall in a New Hampshire winter is 52 inches, but this year 67 inches have already fallen, but more importantly from a budget perspective, there have been more snow events than average as well.
And if you think the roads have been bumpy this year, you’re right.
“Potholes seem to be a national story right now, we’ve had them as early as January this year which is as early as we can remember,” says Boynton.
Normally, potholes are at their worst in late February and March, when the freeze thaw cycles accelerate.