The snow from this year’s record-breaking winter has devastated many homes and buildings all over Massachusetts, and Andover has been no exception. Surpassing the operations budget by approximately $250,000, Andover has spent an exceeding amount of money on snow-related services such as plowing and clearing snow and ice from roofs of countless buildings. The exact cost of the process is still being calculated, according to Larry Muench, Director of Facilities.
“We haven’t seen a winter like this in decades, and the main concern was snow loading on the roofs of campus buildings,” wrote Muench in an email to *The Phillipian*.
This year, five hired contractors and reassigned members of the Public Safety Department worked to clear the snow and ice, causing Andover to surpass the operations budget by $250,000. In a typical winter, Andover engages one contractor to work on clearing snow and ice on a few roofs around campus.
“We expect to spend additional money during a normal New England winter, and we build those expected costs into our operating budgets to cover. However, the events this past winter were not foreseen by anyone. We are very happy to have made it through the winter without an incident,” said Muench.
Andover spent the money nearly exclusively on hiring contractors to remove snow from many campus buildings, Muench said. He added that, after hearing about numerous roofs throughout Massachusetts collapsing, he thought it was necessary to prevent such incidents from occurring at Andover.
Muench said that there is no way to minimize the cost of future events like this without taking a financial gamble, which could potentially result in a loss of money.
“We may not see a winter like this for many years, so pre-paying or having companies on retainer in an attempt save a little money for an event that may or may not happen makes no financial sense,” said Muench.
The funding will come from accounts held by the Trustees for operation of the campus.
