The City of Fort St. John exceeded its 2025 snow removal budget by $484,000 after recording more than 162 centimetres of snowfall between October and December 2025.
City staff are set to present the reasons for the budget overrun to council at Monday’s meeting.
Fort St. John had recently adopted a new snow clearing policy ahead of the winter season.
Snow removal crews have to follow a five-category system, with major roads cleared first and residential streets cleared last.
Due to constant heavy snowfall, crews were forced to continually refocus on major roads, restarting work with each new snowfall. That resulted in snow removal to fall behind in residential areas.
The city says crews followed the policies, but administration needs to review road priorities ahead of next winter.
Most of the additional costs were tied to hiring contractors to work on the worst areas, using up to 10 loaders, five graders, and three bulldozers.
“Contracted services for road clearing equipment from Oct-Dec 2025 totaled well over $500,000,” the report states.
Contracted services were also used for overnight snow haul-off downtown, and to clear and maintain downtown paved lanes.
In addition, over 90 per cent of the winter sand for the season was used, forcing the city to use 2026 funds to purchase more. Salt use also exceeded expectations, resulting in a $57,000 budget shortfall.
“Fortunate for Mother Nature, January and February’s lack of snow fall, have kept that overage in check,” Councillor Trevor Bolin said in a Facebook post.
Road clearing operations have exceeded the budget three times over the past five years. In 2024, the cost overrun reached $114,000.