Plowing critical for county

There are essentially two seasons for the Ozaukee County Highway Department — roadwork and snowplowing.

Dec. 19 was this season’s annual coming out party, when the department’s 27 plows and other vehicles and its 33 drivers were deployed on local roads and highways to deal with the first significant snowstorm.

“I thought we did a pretty good job,” County Highway Commissioner Jon Edgren said of the storm that dropped about a foot of snow on Port Washington and Fredonia and lesser amounts on other communities.

It helped that the bulk of the snow fell during the day and the major roads were mostly cleared for workers coming home from work that day and commuting to work the next morning.

“We did a nice job keeping up with it during the day,” Edgren said.

Staffing for snow storms “gets pretty complicated” and can mean long hours for drivers, Edgren said.

“Typically, it’s all hands on deck during a storm. We’re at full staff until 9 or 10 p.m. and then we drop down to five or six, with two night shifters continuing to plow overnight, focusing on the major highways.

“At about 3 a.m., depending on if the storm is still going on, we bring everyone back in.

“We never have anyone work more than 16 hours,” he said.

Snowplowing is a key service for the county and a major expense and revenue generator for the department.

That includes clearing 95 miles of state highways, including I-43, and 150 miles of county roads.

In the towns, county plows cover 50 miles of roadway in the Town of Belgium, 50 miles in the Town of Fredonia, 45 miles in the Town of Grafton and 24 miles in the Town of Port Washington.

Last year was the first year in more than a decade for the Town of Port, after its private plowing service bowed out of its contract for 2024 and there were no bids to take over the service.

Revenue from plowing in 2024 totaled $500,000 for state and federal highways, $175,000 for towns and $850,000 from county property tax levy, Edgren said.

Primarily because of lighter snowfall, all those figures were down from 2023, except in the towns because of the addition of the Town of Port Washington.

The Town of Saukville uses a private contractor to plow its roads and the Town of Cedarburg has its own highway department.

“Most plow routes are a three-hour round trip. We hit every stretch of road about every three hours,” Edgren said, starting with state highways and I-43.”

In developing the county budget for 2025, Edgren’s department was directed to seek ways to increase revenue to help meet rising costs in other departments, such as Health and Human Services, which is largely dependent on stagnant state and federal aid.

Edgren said finding additional revenue happens almost exclusively on the road construction side by doing work on state-funded parks projects and getting contracts from towns.

The county also has minimum workload requirements with the towns that affect plowing services and enables the county to keep itself fully staffed throughout the year.

“The minimum workload agreements are an exchange for giving a discount on equipment charges with the towns,” Edgren said.

“If the town wants discounted equipment rates, then they need to use our plowing service and guarantee a minimum workload for the year.  If they don’t want to guarantee a minimum workload, then we’ll perform individual services if we’re able.”

Looking ahead, it does not look like there will be a lot more snowfall this year than in recent times.

According to the National Weather Service, a majority of the state has above-normal chances for precipitation this winter, but it does not specify how much precipitation will fall as rain, snow or ice.