It isn’t mid-winter yet, but the town has already overspent its yearly line item for snow and ice removal.

Every year the town budgets $123,000 for snow and ice, and every year the town spends more than that. But by state law, the town’s snow and ice line item can be overspent and made up for from other revenues — including, often, so-called “free cash,” which refers to monies appropriated but not spent and not encumbered by expected expenses.

This past Monday night, the town’s Board of Selectmen and Advisory Board approved deficit spending for the snow and ice budget. As of the last storm several days ago the town owed about $500 more than that $123,000 budgeted, according to the town’s public works director, Remo “Butch” Vito.

Last fiscal year the town spent $402,000 for snow and ice removal, Vito noted in an email message to The Norfolk Boomerang.

In decent budget years, it’s usually no big deal. When free cash is flush, selectmen and the Advisory Board simply recommend that Town Meeting use a portion of it to cover the snow and ice budget, and the problem pretty much disappears.

But in recent years, as revenues have failed to keep up with expenses, town officials keep saying the coming fiscal year budget situation looks worse than the previous one, and back-door escape hatches are disappearing.

By law the town can not only deficit spend the snowand ice budget (which it always does), it can also bring the deficit forward to the following fiscal year’s budget, something town officials haven’t done (at least in recent memory) for fear of making expected budget problems in the coming fiscal year that much worse.

That’s the case this year, too — Selectman Jim Lehan, board chairman, said earlier this week that selectmen have no interest in carrying a deficit for snow and ice into the fiscal year 2011 budget (which runs from July 1, 2010 through June 30, 2011).

But Advisory Board member Marc Waldman said Monday night it’s time for the town to increase its snow and ice budget dramatically, to reflect an amount the town actually expects to spend.

“We know no matter how good the winter is that because we set such a low snow and ice budget that we’re going to run into a deficit. But the key difference is in years past we’ve understood that generally we would be able to identify monies by the end of the fiscal year to pay for that deficit. That’s going to be a very daunting task this year,” Waldman said during the Advisory Board meeting.

“… Clearly next year we’ve got to start doubling the snow and ice budget,” Waldman said. “… The game is over. We played it long enough. We’ve got to make that a little more realistic.”