Winter weather is just around the corner, but the question is will the snow plows be close behind?

"Revenues are continuing to go down," Bill Conklin, managing director of the Ingham County Road Commission said. "We're making an assumption of 5 percent less revenues for 2010 then we had this year and even this year was lower than last."

It's a balancing act every year Conklin said between declining revenues and increasing costs. In response, the road commission has reduced its work force and some services.

"We won't be able to do local roads or subdivisions on weekends or overtime unless they are impassable or there is a hazard there," Conklin said.

The main ingredient to battle mother nature is salt and the price of it has nearly doubled in the past few years putting constraints on every local agency.

"We will be looking at our operations and right sizing and changing shifts doing things that might not impact overtime, but will change who is on what shift," Chad Gamble said.

Gamble, the director of public service for the city of Lansing, said every local government and road commission is in the same boat because every agency relies on the gas tax for funding.

"The challenge with the gas tax is it hasn't been increased for almost 13 years now and the cost of salt has skyrocketed," Gamble said. "So we're charged with doing more with less."

So unless the legislature votes to raise the gas tax, drivers better bring patience with them this winter.

"The economy hopefully is turning around, so hopefully we'll start to consider a revenue increase for roads," Conklin said.

Gamble said the city won't change any of its plowing services this winter, but if there is a lot of overtime or snow storms, money will have to come out of the summer maintenance budget. Meaning there might be more potholes out there later in the year.