There hasn’t been nearly as much snow in New Jersey this year as there was last year. So, you would think municipal budgets across the state would have extra money in their budgets being that they haven’t had excess snow removal costs.

But, that’s not the case.

“In many cases, they exceeded their 2011 budgets and were literally putting a burden on their 2012 budgets,” said Bill Dressel, Executive Director of the New Jersey League of Municipalities. “We cannot discount the extraordinary weather events that we had in the Fall of 2011. We had major ice and snowstorms. Those events would have limited what many municipalities would have had to spend this year.”

“Most municipalities operate their budgets based on the calendar year, so they still have next November and December to include in this year’s budget,” said Dressel. “So, yes, we are thankful that we haven’t seen the snowfall totals that we already had at this point last year, but there are still a couple more months at the other end that we have to budget for.”

“It’s not like there is this surplus of monies that are sitting there in an account. That money has to be there because we have no idea what is coming down the road and whether another possible emergency situation may arise,” said Dressel. “Looking at what’s happened over the past four or five years, it’s almost inevitable that something is going to happen. We just have to be ready.”

More From 92.7 WOBM