DENVER -- The blizzards that hit the Midwest and the Eastern Seaboard this month rang up huge snow-removal bills for cash-strapped state and local governments -- and left officials scrambling to figure out how they will pay to clear roads later in the winter.

Maryland's State Highway Administration has spent more than $27 million this year on snow removal, the bulk of that clearing away a massive pre-Christmas storm. But the agency's annual snow-removal budget is just $26 million.

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Jacob Longwell, left, and Josh Peterson, right, try to dig a car out of a snow drift in Omaha, Neb., on Saturday.

Officials will have to "make adjustments in other areas of their operating budgets" to cover the overrun, the state's transportation secretary, Beverley Swaim-Staley, said in a statement.

Similar adjustments are going on across the country -- and they often mean less plowing.

Colorado officials recently notified residents in rural areas that they will let snow sit overnight on 2,800 miles of sparsely traveled state highways to cut down on overtime costs.

Stacey Stegman, a spokeswoman for the Department of Transportation, said it costs Colorado $4.85 to send one snowplow one mile down one lane of highway. "It adds up," Ms. Stegman said. "We're tightening the belt."

But the policy is drawing fire from rural residents and state Sen. Greg Brophy, a Republican, who says he knows from his own driveway-shoveling experience that it's a lot more effective to clear away the snow as it falls. Waiting until morning means the snow is likely to be frozen, compacted and, he says, "next to impossible to bust up."

Oklahoma, socked by a Christmas Eve blizzard, is also feeling the pinch.

Cleveland County, which covers the southern suburbs of Oklahoma City, had to call in 50 employees for three days of holiday overtime to clear a foot of snow. The bill, a bad blow to an already-strained budget, will make it impossible for the county to buy a $100,000 winch truck needed to pull stranded vehicles off the road, said county commissioner Rod Cleveland.

Help from the state is unlikely. The governor has directed the Oklahoma Transportation Department to cut 10% of its budget.

Snow removal is a crucial issue for many voters; botched responses to big storms have ended several political careers. So some officials refuse to hold back the plows, despite intense budget pressure. Virginia's Department of Transportation has stopped mowing and picking up litter, closed rest stops and laid off 450 employees, but asked whether the agency had cut snow removal, spokesman Jeff Caldwell answered: "In a word, no."

Elsewhere, however, officials say they have no choice. In Colorado Springs, Colo., for instance, the city will no longer plow residential streets unless at least six inches of snow has accumulated.

And in Minneapolis, Mayor R. T. Rybak cut the snow-removal work force to 80 from 134 (though he did bring back several dozen workers temporarily to handle a big storm earlier this month). His goal: to trim the snow-removal budget by 17% in 2010.

"The cross-country skier in me wants the snow," Mr. Rybak said. "But the mayor in me wants 35 degrees and sunny."

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