Drivers be warned. When the thick snow falls, it will stay longer on roads in one Northern Michigan county. Simple put, according to the road commission budget cuts mean they won't have the resources to plow as quickly as they have in past winters.

Ski resorts maybe hating it. Snowmobilers are hoping it all changes very soon. But when it comes to our warm dry weather, the Grand Traverse County Road Commission couldn't be much happier.  Manager Mary Gillis sees it "every it doesn't snow or ice up, it doesn't freeze, it saves us money in materials if nothing else.  It does save us money, we are not running trucks, we're saving fuel."  Saving money is a very good thing, because while they have tons of salt and sand, the road commission has a real shortage of cash.

According to Gillis "we are really starting to hit bottom funding wise. I was just looking at our numbers and we expect to receive less in revenue than 2003 in 2010." They are getting close to the same funding from the state as they did 7 years ago, but costs like diesel fuel and road salt have sky rocketed. Unlike most road commissions in the state, Grand Traverse relies entirely on state funding (no local millages or funding) for just about everything including snow removal but state funding is drying up.  As more people are leaving Michigan and cars are getting more fuel efficient, the revenue for road projects is shrinking. As Gillis explains "its all gas tax and registration fee, so obviously that's been going down the cars have become more fuel efficient, cash for clunkers was great for the country but its going to hurt our revenues."

And hurt it has. The Road Commission runs on about $6.5 million annual budget and according to Gillis, that's not nearly enough to make ends meet.  This week, it’s going to get worse. Gillis says "We are going into a budget meeting on Wednesday where we are going to look for $800,000 to cut out of our budget." And she says the problem with trimming that much from a fat free budget is that "anything that even has the slightest bit of we really don't need to do it, it’s already gone, it’s been gone for awhile. Really the only thing left to cut which we have avoided doing for the past 4 years is winter work so I think people are going to see some serious cuts."

So the warning for drivers in Grand Traverse County this year is coming even before the real winter weather. Gillis says due to budget cuts "there are going to be less people so an extended storm situation we're going to have less people. There won't be anyone there to backup once our overtime is done for that day. The guys can only work so many hours, then they are going to have to wait to see their roads cleared."