City of Windsor’s winter control budget

The City of Windsor’s annual winter control fiscal calendar budget is roughly $5.6 million.

“The approximate cost for each snowfall is $12 thousand per hour,” said Phong Nguy, the manager of contract maintenance and field services. “We have 21 main routes altogether, not counting residential streets.”

The main routes include E.C. Row Expressway, arterial roadways, Riverside Drive and collector roads, according to the City of Windsor’s Winter Control Service Level Policy.

“That is roughly 1,067 kilometres that we have to cover,” said Nguy. “Our ploughs typically run 40 kilometres an hour, and it takes about three to six hours to cover one entire route, depending on traffic.”

According to Nguy, it takes approximately 24-36 hours to go through the entire city, costing about $300,000 to $375,000 per event.

Nguy said the city generally does not track this budget tightly because of the unpredictable function of its operation, which is weather related.

The city allocates about $1.8 million to salt, running about 20 thousand tonnes annually.

“We have two salt domes, and each holds approximately five thousand tonnes,” Nguy said. “Salting the roads is generally good until about minus 11-15 degrees Celsius. After that, it is not that effective because it does not melt. Salt requires traffic to help break it down into small pieces to melt the snow.”

Nguy said Green Infrastructure Partners (GIP) are Windsor’s primary contractors. They are responsible for the bulk of main route winter control operations, costing roughly $2.2 million yearly.

“They provide snow ploughing and salting services, as well as trucks,” said Nguy. “We have six city trucks with ploughs, two salt domes and one loader. GIP has 15 trucks and one loader. Going into residential streets, we hire additional contractors who supply graders, loaders, and other trucks and ploughs.”

“We can’t employ that much equipment here and have it sit all summer,” Nguy added. “That is why we leverage on the balance of contractors and in-house staff.”

According to the City of Windsor’s Winter Control Service Level Policy, once snowfall has exceeded four inches and the storm has ended, ploughing will begin in the residential areas.

Nguy said contractors help deal with heavy snowfall efficiently, but in-house response times are faster.

“If you have to call a contractor, they have to go to their site, pick up their vehicle, come over here, load up, and then go out and respond,” Nguy said. “Whereas, in-house staff will come in here, load up themselves, and go out, so the response time is much quicker.”

According to Ward 9 Coun. Kieran McKenzie, it is best to deliver critical services by any municipality in-house.

“The response to any weather-related type of event is unpredictable and you want your workforce to have the flexibility to respond to things happening in real-time,” McKenzie said.

When you try to outsource services, you lose “span of control,” added McKenzie.

“You essentially have to write a contract that can imagine every single scenario you would want that service provider to provide within the scope of what they are trying to do,” McKenzie said.

According to McKenzie, if you have a certain service outsourced or contracted and something unexpected happens, it can cost the municipality a lot more than if you had those human resources available in-house.

“Many people may think contracting is a way to save money,” said McKenzie. “But when you outsource work, you take a significant financial risk that nothing unforeseen will happen within the service area you are trying to outsource.”