As gasoline prices explode in northeast Wisconsin, causing pain in the pocketbook while at the pumps, the good news is that it’s not impacting the city of Shawano’s bottom line, at least not yet.
At the end of February, the price of unleaded at many gas stations in the city limits hovered around $2.16 per gallon, which was the lowest price out of many locations in the region. At the end of March, that price is now around $3.89 per gallon, according to local observations, which is an 80% price jump. It’s slightly below the national average of $4.02 per gallon, but not by much.
The city of Shawano is not currently paying that price, according to City Administrator Eddie Sheppard. The city buys its fuel in bulk from the Shawano County Highway Department. Using the most fuel are city snowplows and police vehicles, although vehicles utilized by the parks and recreation and public works departments also consume a fair amount of gas.
The fuel use should ease somewhat with the end of winter, as snowplows are unlikely to be needed more than once or twice until the next snow season kicks off in late October or November, according to Sheppard.
“Obviously, we run a lot of equipment in the summertime, as well, but nothing consumes like our plow trucks,” he said. “It’s something we’re going to need to monitor very closely, depending on how fuel regulates throughout the year. We may have to look at operational changes as the year goes, but as of right now, we are not.”
Police vehicles are on patrol 24/7 in the city, so those also use a fair amount of fuel, although not quite as much per day as the snowplows do when they are called out during nasty weather.
“We always try to account for that during the budget season when we’re looking at that,” Sheppard said. “You never know what’s going to happen out in the field, so we always try to be a little bit conservative to make sure we allocate enough resources there. You don’t always anticipate huge spikes to come out like this.”
Sheppard noted that the city checks fuel consumption monthly to make sure the city is staying within estimated margins, but it could be something that’s looked at in June when budget planning begins in earnest if fuel prices don’t drop back down in the next couple of months, something that could be determined by the length of the war in Iran.
“If we’re over in our budgets for fuel, are there other things we have to cut back on?” Sheppard said.
He added that Shawano County has done very well in purchasing fuel for itself and the city to use by buying when prices are lower, but there’s always the possibility that the price could go up if the standard gas prices don’t drop back down in the next few months.
“It’s come out of the blue, so we haven’t had a lot of time to dissect it,” Sheppard said.
lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com
