Cedar Rapids seeks more state help on flood control

CEDAR RAPIDS - One of the city's great victories came in December 2013 when the Iowa Flood Mitigation Board awarded it $263.77 million over up to 20 years to build a flood control system.

The award allowed officials to declare the city could build the system even as it still waits for some $78 million in hoped-for federal funds from Congress.

Thursday, the city will be back in front of the Iowa board to ask for $5.63 million more in state assistance as it prepares to build one of the first phases of the system, raising the flood protection wall at the Quaker Co. plant.

In a letter to the Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management Department and the Flood Mitigation Board, City Manager Jeff Pomeranz said the city is requesting the additional funds for two reasons: federal money for the system has yet to be appropriated by Congress; and the project expense has increased from the initial $570 million, in part, because its length has increased by 5 percent to avoid switches in the rail yard upstream from the Quaker plant.

The state funding portion of the flood control system is tied to the incremental increase in state sales tax collected in Cedar Rapids over a period of up to 20 years.

That increase is climbing more rapidly than had been anticipated, Mayor Ron Corbett said.

'We've been overperforming, so that means the state has been sharing in Cedar Rapids' growth and is one of the reasons we're asking for some additional funding,” he said Monday.

The city and state had expected to see the sales tax increase by $5.06 million in fiscal year 2015, but the city estimates that the increase actually will be $10.7 million. As a result, it's asking the Flood Mitigation Board to increase the payout by $5.63 million more than had been expected for this one year.

The program permits state funds to be used to pay only up to 50 percent of a project's total cost, and the additional $5.63 million would bring the state's share to 47.77 percent, the city says.

Lucinda Robertson, spokeswoman for the Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management Department, said Monday the department's professional staff does not make recommendations to the Flood Mitigation Board, but reviews a city request to see if it complies.

Rob Davis, the city's flood control project manager, said Monday he will ask the City Council to reject bids opened in June for the flood control work at the Quaker plant because they exceeded an engineer's estimate of $11.5 million by $1.2 to $2.2 million. The plan now is to revise the bid documents and rebid it.