UI to make three more appeals to FEMA

CEDAR FALLS - University of Iowa officials will appeal three more flood-related funding decisions to the Federal Emergency Management Agency regional office in Kansas City.

At stake is millions of dollars denied at the state level of FEMA on several projects that UI officials believe the federal government should help fund.

Doug True, UI senior vice president for finance and operations, said it's not unusual for multiple appeals to be filed with FEMA in the cases of such extensive disaster recovery. Damage and recovery estimates could total $1 billion at the UI from the June 2008 flood.

“I think we'll have a number of appeals,” True said after updating the state Board of Regents during a meeting in Cedar Falls. “Our hope is we can document it vigorously and prevail.”

The UI already has an appeal pending with FEMA's federal office in Washington, D.C., regarding the denial of funding for a new Museum of Art building.

Of the three new appeals, the two biggest involve the UI Power Plant, True said. One appeal involves recovery work done in the wake of the flood at the Power Plant and in the underground utility tunnels across campus. About $22.6 million in recovery work was done, and the state FEMA office denied $16 million of that reimbursement, which the UI is appealing to seek 90 percent FEMA funding, True said. That work involves about 2,300 separate work invoices, so it's a detailed process, he said.

A second appeal involves denial of costs for mitigation work planned for the future to protect the Power Plant, work that will cost “in the millions, a number that's significant,” True said.

“It is a critical facility” for operation of the university and the hospital, he said of the need to protect the power plant.

The third appeal involves recovery work at the Iowa Memorial Union, and Americans with Disability Act accessibility standards required as part of that work. That is about $800,000 worth of work that UI officials will complete, with or without FEMA funding, True said.

Many of the items just said “denied” and UI officials don't know the reasons.

“We don't know exactly why, but we start from scratch and go through it all” with FEMA, he said.