Although the snow and ice melted weeks ago, the city of Sharon is still paying for salt it used over the winter to keep the roads clean.

According to city Finance Director Michael Gasparich, the city received a notice Friday that it still owes $27,000 on its salt bill.

"The company called and said they'd found a lost invoice that no one here had ever seen," Gasparich said.

With the city paying $32 a ton for salt, Gasparich said, the invoice represents 840 tons of salt.

The additional bill comes at an inopportune time. The winter was so harsh that by February the city had spent more than twice the $140,000 budgeted for salt and snow removal.

Council in March balked at transferring money from the street department salary fund to pay a $68,000 salt bill that was due April 1, and ended up transferring money from a variety of budget line items to pay the bill at the end of April.

The newest bill is from Dec. 3, Gasparich said.

"It was overlooked on their part," he said of the company.

Mayor David O. Ryan said in his experience, a late invoice is not uncommon.

"When I was serving as controller, we would sometimes get invoices that were a year old," he said.

The unfortunate thing about this bill, he said, is it that it resurrects an issue that "just won't die."

"It's bad that it happened now, and it's bad that it's salt," Ryan said.

Gasparich said the city would be able to make up about half of the bill from savings earned from new insurance policies. The city went out to bid for several of its insurance policies, he said, which resulted in substantial savings.

After that, Ryan said, "We'll just have to come up with the funds."

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