Getting snow to cooperate with the calendar would make removing it less expensive, city council heard Wednesday night.
Among the financial drivers to the city's snow clearing budget is the timing of snowfalls, said associate public works director Gina Layte Liston during an update on the winter season.
Running a weekday snow removal shift costs about $35,000 in labour, while a weekend shift jumps up to $56,000.
Between November 2014 and this March, maintaining city roads, sidewalks, city parking lots and surfaces around civic facilities cost $6.49 million. According to Environment Canada, the city received 145 centimetres of snow during that time period and 138 centimetres of rain.
The winter season spans two separate city fiscal years. The 2014 budget for snow removal was $5.8 million, but that was overspent by nearly $650,000. The 2015 budget for snow removal is $6.3 million.
Wednesday night's meeting provided members of council with an update on the actions taken and still to come stemming from a third-party review conducted last summer. Mercury and Associates were paid $131,900 to look at Prince George's snow clearing and fleet operations.
While some of the recommendations were put in to practice last winter, there are still plans in the works to make further improvements this year.
Among the coming changes is the use of a GPS system for the snow and heavy-duty fleet.
The city has awarded the contract for that work to Newfoundland and Labrador-based SkyHawk Telemetrics for a $120,000 capital expense and an expected $60,000 annual operating cost. Installation is expected to begin in August, but residents won't be able to track them when it's turned on.
After conversations with the union, real-time tracking won't be available, said Layte Liston. "We will have the real-time data, but it won't be monitored in real time," she said, but added it is up for further discussion.
