Council committee wants to steer sales-tax money to flooded renters

Renters who lost personal possessions in the June 2008 flood also will receive money from revenue raised by the city's local-option sales tax if the City Council's Budget Committee gets its way.

However, the four-member committee, which is chaired by Mayor Ron Corbett, decided on Tuesday afternoon to take a couple more weeks to study the details of the renter program before it recommends to the nine-member council exactly who will qualify and up to how much they might receive.

Flood-impacted renters have lobbied the City Council ever since the council approved payments of up to $10,000 in recent weeks for owners of residences who lost personal possessions in the 2008 disaster.

The council committee on Tuesday learned that about 1,600 owners of flood-hit homes have applied for the grants of up to $10,000 in just a matter of a few weeks.

By the end of this week, 453 owners will have gotten checks averaging $8,430 each after deductions for earlier personal-property payments from FEMA or private insurance.

Drew Westberg, special assistant to the city manager, told the council that he now estimates that the council will spend $12.5 million in local-option sales tax revenue, up from a previous estimate of $10.5 million, for the personal possessions program for flood-impacted homeowners.

The 1-percent local-option sales tax, which is being collected for 63 months through June 30, 2014, is expected to raise about $80 million for flood-recovery needs.

If a program is put in place for renters, they will need to have received earlier funds from FEMA to qualify for local-option sales tax funds as did homeowners because of restrictions set out in the ballot language about how the sales tax can be spent. In one part of that language, it states that the local-option tax money can be used to “match” federal funds.