How Much of the Snow Removal Budget is Left in Sudbury?

Stop me if you've heard this lately — there's snow in the forecast for this weekend.

After what had been a relatively quiet winter, February has picked up the pace with the Blizzard of 2013 and a smaller snowstorm last weekend. And for the third weekend in a row, there's the potential for possibly another foot of the white stuff, according to WHDH meteorologist Jeremy Reiner's blog.

With Sudbury DPW crews having such an active month clearing snow, we looked into what is left in the town's budget and found it has spent almost the entire $424,750 budget.

Finance Director Andrea Terkelsen said the town still has bills coming in from last storm and that deficit spending will likely happen.

"(DPW Director) Bill Place requested that his division be allowed to deficit spend for the remainder of the fiscal year," she said. "We expect to exceed the budget very shortly."

State law allows towns to legally deficit spend for snow and ice removal for public safety.

"We'll be submitting an official request to FINCOM at its Feb. 26 meeting to let them know the status at that point, and ask for the OK to deficit spend," Terkelsen said.

Terkelsen said the town will first look into the reserve fund to help supplement the cost, and then if needed look to the town's other cost centers to help.

"Our last option would be raising additional funds in the tax levy year for FY14," she said.