Winter weather in Massachusetts is notoriously unpredictable, sometimes making it a difficult for city and town budget chiefs to plan accordingly.

Recognizing that unpredictability, state law allows cities and towns to carry a deficit for snow removal expenses from one year to the next. Most communities take advantage of that, and many budget planners intentionally under-budget for snow removal.

What’s the advantage of under-budgeting?

While state law allows for cities and towns to carry a deficit for snow removal to the following year’s budget, there is a caveat.

“In order to qualify to carry that deficit forward, you have to budget at least what you’ve allocated the previous year,” explained Geoff Beckwith, executive director of the Massachusetts Municipal Association. “It creates a financial penalty for budgeting for the average amount of snow.”

What would be the potential effects of over-budgeting?

If a city or town bases its snow removal budget on a historically severe winter, it’s virtually locked into budgeting that amount every year in the future. That means a large amount of money would be unnecessarily tied up. That’s money that could otherwise be budgeted for education, police, fire, libraries, recreation and other municipal services.

When a town carries a deficit over, does that mean plow drivers wait a year to get paid?

No. That’s due to the differences between accrual accounting and cash accounting, Beckwith explained.

“It’s not putting off the payments; it’s putting off the way the community is going to balance the books until the next year,” he said. “No community’s so close to the fiscal edge that they wouldn’t have the cash to make the payments.”