It's just a fact of winter, but in this La Niña winter it's an especially chilling fact. The Utah Department of Transportation has burned through its $18.1 million snow removal allotment and then some, and it's only early February.

It's also taxing the state's plow drivers, some of whom have complained of 16-hour shifts during storms and questioned whether that's safe. UDOT spokesman Nile Easton said long hours like those have been unavoidable this winter, though the department still tries to stagger shifts to minimize the sleepy factor.

"The problem has been these storms have come in multiple waves," he said.

So far this snow year, UDOT has spent $19.4 million, forcing it to shift $1.5 million from its maintenance fund meant for potholes, restriping and the like, Easton said.

Now the department is asking the Legislature for permission to move $8 million from its construction budget to cover expected snowfall through April. Easton said money would come from small projects, such as State Street rehabilitation or 3500 South repairs, and not from big freeway projects.

It's the same for local governments, especially snow- bound Ogden. When Salt Lake City gets an inch this winter, Ogden gets 8, Ogden Chief Administrative Officer John Patterson said. Before last weekend's storm, the city already was $78,000 over its removal budget.

"We've been lulled into this security because we haven't had any harsh winters since '92-'93," said Patterson. "We've been loving life." Until now.

The snow is lighter but the story is the same in Salt Lake City, where Public Services officials are about to ask the City Council for more money. The city's winter salt budget, approved at $216,000, needs $240,000 more, Public Services finance director Greg Davis said.

Plow maintenance, budgeted at $298,000, needs $108,000 more. The department has also paid $31,000 in overtime related to plowing.

The city's 177 snow workers are deployed in two 12-hour shifts during storms, and so far have spread more than 12,000 tons of salt.

Council members may expect the department to skim some of the excess from internal budgets, Davis said, but he's preparing a budget request for the rest.

Salt Lake County hasn't tallied the bills yet, but by early January had reordered salt, said Jim Braden, spokesman for the mayor's office. In many years the county never reorders.

"It's more like the good old days," Braden said.

bloomis@sltrib.com

UDOT's price tag for each storm is $700,000 or $800,000, mobilizing up to 550 regular drivers and 30 other maintenance workers with commercial driver licenses to steer the state's roughly 500 plows.