WINDHAM – After months of numerous snow and ice storms, Windham’s budgets for sand, salt and magnesium chloride have been exhausted, according to Doug Fortier, director of public works.

Fortier said the vast majority of his department’s winter budget, with the exception of the equipment maintenance component, has gone “out the window.”

“We’re pretty much exhausted,” he said.

In a Feb. 6 memo to the Town Council, Town Manager Tony Plante wrote that it would be necessary to use funds from the Energy and Weather Emergency Fund, a $100,000 account established in 2009, to offset the town’s remaining winter expenses.

According to Finance Director Brian Wolcott, the town has never been forced to use the contingency fund, which was set up partially in response to the energy shock of 2008, when the price of a barrel of crude oil shot up nearly $100 in a year’s time.

Fortier said that in previous years, he’s wondered whether his department would need to tap into the fund.

“We’ve been close before,” Fortier said. “Typically it’s in March when we’re looking at this, not February.”

Wolcott said that the town’s annual snow removal budget this year is $338,818, with $37,290 allocated toward equipment maintenance. Wolcott estimated that at least $300,000 had been spent already.

According to Plante, the town pays a fixed price for sand and salt, regardless of when it orders the commodities. The town buys sand from Windham-based C.R. Tandberg and bids on winter salt from the International Salt Co. through a collective bidding process organized by the Greater Portland Council of Governments, he said.

The Department of Public Works’ shed on Windham Center Road holds about 5,000 yards of sand and 1,000 yards of salt, according to Plante. This year, the town budgeted for about 6,000 yards of sand and 3,000 yards of salt, he said.

So far, according to Plante, the town has ordered 6,500 yards of sand. Plante said he did not know how much salt had been ordered as of mid-February.

Since the department’s overtime budget has been exhausted, as well, Plante said, the town has been forced to scale back some daytime operations.

“We’ve got a small crew, and they are worn out,” Plante said at 2 p.m. on Wednesday between two back-to-back storms. “The crew was out until 2:30 this morning, so rather than having them report at 7 o’clock which is what they normally do … they were reporting anytime between noon and about now. They’re going to be working however long the precipitation lasts tonight and the clean-up following that, and then tomorrow they’ll have to be back at it for Friday.”

If the town burns through the entire contingency fund, Wolcott said, they would be forced to use money from the unassigned fund balance.

“Then it would just come out of the pot called unassigned fund balance, which you could call a rainy day fund,” Wolcott said. “I suppose, in this case, the snowy day fund.”

Wolcott said that ratings agencies keep a close watch on municipalities’ unassigned fund balances.

Plante said he was concerned that the town may use up the entire emergency fund.

“We don’t want to spend all of that emergency fund,” Plante said. “We’re just trying to limp along when it comes to how much sand and salt that we order.”

But the town will focus on specific budgeting once the winter season ends, Wolcott said.

“I think what we’ll do is we’ll wait and see how it shakes out and do the accounting at that point, once the snow season is behind us,” Wolcott said. “We’ll see how much over we went, and do the bookkeeping at that point, because if we do it now it’s like a moving target. Unless we don’t get more snow, but I wouldn’t want to bet on that.”

In his memo to the council, Plante wrote that the alternative to dipping into the emergency fund was “to reduce the level of response and/or work in other areas, such as (but not only) road improvements.”

The level of road maintenance, however, won’t result in danger for motorists, officials say.

“We’re still going to do what we’re going to do,” Fortier said. “We’re going to make the roads safe. We can’t not make the roads safe.”