When it comes to spring, municipalities look at budget numbers and the cost of maintenance, replacements and repairs.

Due to the dry, hot summer last summer, some municipalities held back on road maintenance simply because rural roads were much like cement, resulting in grader and machinery breakdowns and massive repair bills.

Boissevain-Morton Mayor Judy Swanson says last spring's road maintenance bill came as a surprise, but this spring they're hoping for no surprises, but they've always got to keep in mind they're at the mercy of the weather.

She says each year they budget for the worse-case scenario to the best of their ability, but last spring the quick thaw and a repair bill of $180,000 before they even started working on the roads made for a difficult start to the summer season.

"With that, we did the best we could," she says. "We did rebuild some roads, and we did some fixing, but we didn't get as much done on the roads as we would have liked and having said that we had two of the graders down."

So, any money that might have been saved from say, winter road maintenance with little snowfall, ends up going into another department.

"So, roads, spring and weather is really tricky," she adds. "If it's too wet you can't grade. If it's too dry there is no point in grading because you don't really get anything done for the effort you put into it."

"So, it has to be just right, and we don't often get conditions that are just right!"

Please listen to more with Judy Swanson on road maintenance below!