Costly emergency response not needed for latest Saskatoon snowfall: city

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The City of Saskatoon won’t clear residential roads of the recent snowfall because mobility is still possible and cost-cutting measures are needed due to previous events, civic officials said on Monday.

Activating the roadways emergency response plan would cost $18 million to $20 million, which is a substantial expenditure.

Roadways director Goran Saric said the recent weather met the first condition of activating the roadways emergency response plan by hitting 25 centimetres of accumulated snow, but crews are managing effectively without activating the plan and light vehicles can still get around.

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He said staff will continue to assess conditions and plans will be updated accordingly.

Complaints have been popping up online from people with smaller vehicles getting stuck in their neighbourhoods.

Saric said the two snow events within the last week, on top of the snow that fell in March, have put additional pressures on the city’s 2024 snow removal budget.

“All those numbers and calculations will be done as part of our year end forecasting and reporting, and those numbers will be reported to city council,” he said.

That report may not be seen until closer to the end of the first quarter of the new year, he added.

“Based on the response that had to be activated in March this year, which was a partial activation of the emergency response plan, which ended up costing us close to $6 million, that actually did put us over the annual budget already.”

Saric said the annual budget plans for five major snow events each year, which includes any accumulation over 5 cm that would require external contractors to help clear roads.

“A typical snow event is around $1 to $1.5 million. The last one here, the first snow event of the season, resulted in 17 cm of snow and it was quite challenging,” Saric said, speculating that the first event would have cost nearly $1.5 million, and the second as much as $2.3 million.

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About 200 people are involved in the response to the latest snowfall, about half of whom are external contractors, he said.

The total 2024 budget for snow removal is $15.8 million; $16.9 million is budgeted for 2025.

The city spent an extra $4 million in 2022 because there were more than the usual number of snow events that year and city-wide rut levelling was necessary.

After that, the city started setting aside money; an extra $175,000 was allocated for 2024 and $166,000 for 2025 to start building a fund for future emergency snow events.

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