Maybe That Extra $250K Is a Good Idea

Mayor Lisa Wong requested an extra $500,000 for snow-and-ice last week, and the City Council gave her half that. Four days later, it snowed another 10-12 inches in Fitchburg.

Save Fitchburg doesn't employ a meteorologist, but you'd have to think the snow predicted for Thursday night/Friday morning is going to put the city close to 50 inches for the season. Yikes.

Communities are allowed to deficit-spend on snow-and-ice. They can shift money around to fill in the debt, or carry it over to next year. It is not unusual for a community to overspend, so no blame necessary for the situation.

That said, the city has blown through its snow-and-ice budget, and everyone well knows, Wong didn't come into office with envelopes full of 100s tucked in desk drawers. A few hundred thousand here, a few hundred thousand there, and eventually you're talking real money, especially when your wiggle room is so limited.

The point: Snow sucks.