Parked roadside with engines idling and snow plows hovering can earn contractors as much as $210 an hour in Bergen County, N.J.

Put those trucks in gear and let the plows scrape the asphalt, and the pay rate doubles — to as much as $420.

It’s a financial twist built into standard snow removal contracts statewide. A plow’s idle time, known as “standby,” is assigned an hourly value, and it accumulates while a plow, at rest, stays at rest.

Bergen County taxpayers have paid close to $200,000 in standby fees since 2003.

In addition:

• Bergen County has spent more than $1.1 million hiring contractors to clear 90 inches of snow on select county roads and parking lots since 2003.

• Of that, nearly $1 million went to one firm, Joseph M. Sanzari Inc. of North Bergen.

• Sanzari was paid $133,000 in standby pay during that time — nearly triple that of the other two county contractors — JR Haftek Co. Inc of Paterson and J. Fletcher Creamer & Son Inc. of Hackensack — combined.

• The county paid the contractors at least $38,000 just to mount plows on their trucks each winter — whether it snowed or not.

“We’re just waiting for enough snow to accumulate and then we’ll go out there and start pushing the snow,” said Timothy Murray, a superintendent at Sanzari, who oversees the company’s snow plowing contract.

Paying contractors to wait, county officials say, is a necessary byproduct of preparing for the unpredictable.

“When the newscasts are saying the snow is supposed to start at 5 o’clock — if you do not have all the trucks at their site at 3 o’clock, if they have to go through rush hour with all the other cars to get to their location, they’re not going to make it,” said Tom Connolly, Bergen County’s assistant supervisor of roads.

Once the trucks report to work, they’re on the clock. “If they’re at the site, their trucks are here, their trucks are running and they’re paying their men, we have to pay them,” Connolly said.

Actual plowing begins after several inches of snow pile up and then only at the direction of a county inspector assigned to the locations where private contractors are stationed, Connolly said.

Sanzari’s standby rate this year ranges from $105 to $183.75 an hour ($131.25 to $210 on weekends) for each unit of equipment, according to the contract. A unit is typically made up of two to six trucks. The rate doubles when plowing begins, ranging from $210 to $420.

“When you hear that noise, that’s the operating rate,” Murray said.

Bergen County officials characterize standby pay as a money saver. Plowing firms are guaranteed eight hours of pay each time they are called to duty — snow or no snow. Standby offers the county a discount rate to cover that guarantee, county officials said.

“You’re either paying them standby time or you’re paying them full rate,” said Bergen County spokesman Brian Hague.

In Passaic County, contractors get paid the full rate of about $250 at all times, with no minimum guarantees, said Passaic spokeswoman Dolores Choteborsky.

On some occasions — like March 2, 2006, when only an inch of snow fell in Bergen — Sanzari earned $3,000 in standby, nearly half of his total pay that day, county records show. On Jan. 3, 2006, with weather reports showing two inches of precipitation, both Sanzari and Haftek earned $10,460 combined in standby pay.

But when the snow comes in heavy, standby is a fraction of their intake. Clearing the average storm is a choreographed dance of starting and stopping as snow accumulates, gets cleared and reaccumulates, said Joseph Haftek.

In Bergen, road supervisors call in the plows after weighing weather forecasts against the time of day and expected traffic patterns. Then there’s the X factor — crossing the fingers and hoping the weatherman is correct.

“It’s always a fear — it’s very stressful,” Connolly said. “If you don’t have the plows 1/8out3/8, one lawsuit costs you more.”

Bergen County also pays municipalities to plow county roads in their towns — part of its annual $1.5 million snow plowing budget. The county budgets another $2 million a year in salt — used by the contractors and municipalities.

For towns that can’t handle the task — including Franklin Lakes, Wyckoff, Mahwah, Carlstadt and parts of Fort Lee, Palisades Park and Cliffside Park — the county sends its hired contractors to clear the roads.

“They had done a pretty decent job as far as I was concerned,” said George Suter, 62, a Carlstadt resident, speaking of the local and county-hired plows during last week’s and the Valentine’s Day ice and snow storms. “It sounded like they pretty much kept going almost all night long.”

The county used the contractors to remove snow from garages and parking lots of county buildings, including the courthouse, the juvenile detention center and the prosecutor’s office.

As elsewhere, plowing contracts in Bergen are publicly bid. The county’s current contractors — the contract expires this month — are the only ones who responded to the last request for bids.

Haftek, the lowest bidder for the Franklin Lakes and Wyckoff routes, handles those towns. Sanzari, which bid on every route, and bid the highest in both standby and operating fees, handles almost everything else. Creamer does the county parking lots and buildings, most of which are across the street from his headquarters in Hackensack.

North Jersey officials say it’s tough to find contractors willing to plow.

“We don’t get the responses like we used to,” said Timothy Collins, superintendent of roads for the township of Wayne in Passaic County. He says road builders and landscapers are getting out of the seasonal plowing business.

“You’ve got to go out and buy yourself a plow, which — if you’re doing it right, your insurance company is going to hit you with a little more of a premium,” said Collins, who added that Wayne does not pay standby fees. “And there’s wear and tear on your vehicle.”

The snow season, public work officials say, does not reliably draw to a close until the middle of April. For officials, that can’t arrive soon enough. “I do not like snow season,” Connolly said. “It plays havoc on your mind, it puts a lot of stress on you. If you talk to people in this business, any public works superintendent will tell you the same thing: ‘I hate snow.’”