A warm, mild winter so far may help driving conditions later in the year. The state has put aside about 50 million dollars to take care of winter weather conditions. But the Department of Transportation has only spent about eight million on maintaining roads so far this winter. Steve Abbott is a spokesman for the North Carolina Department of Transportation.
Steve Abbott: Let's say we have money left over, whether it be the 42 million or so we have now, or 20 or 10 million dollars, that money gets reallocated later in the year once we know no more winter weather's coming and that gets put to the local counties, for them to do their maintenance work, to help pay for potholes, mowing, litter cleanup.
But Abbott says the state has had big storms late in February before. He says the road salt the state has already bought for the winter can be stockpiled for next year.