$300K In Snow Removal Expenses, Rock Salt Approved In Hillsborough

HILLSBOROUGH, NJ — The 2025 winter weather is already making an impact on the Township's budget.

The Township Committee passed two resolutions for $37,920 and $90,000, equaling roughly $127,000 for bulk rock salt at its Tuesday meeting.

Additionally, the Committee approved a resolution authorizing emergency temporary appropriations prior to the adoption of the 2025 budget totaling $14.1 million.

This is up about $5.1 million from the original temporary budget approved in January for $8.9 million. The added costs centered mainly around operating expenses, wages, insurance, and snow removal expenses.

Committeewoman Samantha Hand raised questions about the increase in the amended temporary appropriations.

"I understand that these are things that have to get paid — bills and salt, things like that — but help me understand this," said Hand. "This is now a big number. It has gone from $8.9 million to over $14 million… that being said what does this mean to the budget?"

Committeeman and Finance Committee Liasion Shawn Lipani said the amended emergency appropriations can be linked to operating expenses, wages, insurance, and about $300,000 in snow removal.

"We budget for what we thought the snow would be but we've had storm after storm and we've had to buy salt and pay wages," said Lipani. "The biggest impact to the budget is the more snow we have and the more storms we have the more it's going to hurt our budget. So every time you see a snowstorm, when our guys go out, it's about a $70,000 bill."

Lipani added that it is hard to budget for the current cost of snow removal for the season since they usually base it on the previous year.

"Last year was a pretty benign winter and the year before that was a pretty benign winter so this has happened before where we have a continual snow cycle of every three or four days of having to send out guys out and do snow and ice removal which it impacts the budget on the temporary side because we have to buy the salt and pay for it," said Lipani.

Hand criticized the timing of adding the emergency expenses.

"It puts us in a bad position to have to do an emergency temporary. We are 40 days into the year," said Hand.

Committeewoman Catherine Payne noted, "It's been really hard with this much weather. If you noticed too the DPW has been doing an amazing job with brineing the roads in addition to the plowing."

The uncertainty of the winter weather is where the largest chunk of the difference in the temporary budget lies. Out of the $5.1 million difference, Lipani said "You have almost $300,000 of just salt alone. So that is more than 70 percent of that number."

Hand continued to ask how the Township was tracking with the budget.

Lipani said the Township hasn't sat down with the CFO to do a budget meeting yet, which he said is not uncommon since they have until June to get the budget done.

"The temporary budget that we applied for on Jan. 2 was to cover the salaries and wages as we rolled over to the [reorganization meeting]," said Lipani. "This next appropriation is to get us through to hopefully when we have time to adopt a budget and get a more fixed number but this allows us room to pay the bills and move forward."

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