Cleanup funds for 2005 floods delayed till next year

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AUGUSTA – Maine cities and towns in 11 counties will have to wait until next year to get all the money owed them by the state for their share of repairs and cleanup funds from the floods of April 2005.

Under the president’s declaration, Androscoggin, Franklin, Hancock, Kennebec, Knox, Lincoln, Oxford, Piscataquis, Somerset, Waldo and Washington

counties were eligible for assistance.

State lawmakers in the recently completed legislative session did approve $880,000 for the overdue bills, but that is short of the $1.3 million owed.

“What kind of message does that send to the people of York County who are going to be looking for relief from the flood?” said Rep. Darlene Curley, R-Scarborough, at a late-night meeting of the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee last week.

“Here we are not being able to find the money for a flood from a year ago,” Curley said.

Sen. John Martin, D-Eagle Lake, reminded Curley the money is not for individual aid, but for payments to towns and cities.

“It’s not like we haven’t, in this Legislature, sent them a lot,” he said. “It’s not like they won’t get it. They just won’t get it all at once.”

From March 29, 2005, to May 3, 2005, most of the state was hit with severe storms, flooding and ice jams.

President Bush issued a disaster declaration for 11 counties on June 29, 2005. That allowed the federal government to pay for 75 percent of the cleanup and repairs, with towns matching 10 percent of the cost. The state has yet to pay the 15 percent share required under federal law.

The feds send their share to cities and towns, so with the presidential disaster declaration in York County last Friday, federal funds will start to flow.

While 15 percent may not sound like a lot, Rep. Sawin Millett, R-Waterford, said it means towns are, in effect, loaning money to the state until the state provides its share.

According to Maine Emergency Management Agency records, towns are owed from a few thousand dollars to the largest unpaid bill for $44,446.19 owed Fayette in Kennebec County.

The result of the partial funding, Gov. John Baldacci acknowledged Friday, is that towns will not get all they are owed until the Legislature acts next January.

But he committed to funding the remainder. “They will get what they are owed,” Baldacci said.

Lawmakers passed a resolve directing the governor to present legislation by Jan. 1, 2007, to pay what is owed from the April 2005 storms; the state’s share of the costs of cleanup and repairs from this month’s flooding in York County; and $500,000 for relocation of the water and sewer infrastructure of downtown Canton to higher ground.

In December 2003, Canton was flooded from ice jams on the Androscoggin River. Federal grants of $4 million have been used to relocate many of the buildings in the flood plain to higher ground, and Sen. Bruce Bryant, D-Dixfield, sought the state money to help pay for part of a project expected to total $10 million.

“I had hoped to get this in a bond issue,” he said, “but when it was clear there would be no bond issue this year, I wanted to get this in.”

Full funding of the past due bills apparently ran into a concern among Democrats on the Appropriations Committee that if any of the anticipated state surplus was spent, it would create tremendous pressure to use that money for scores of spending measures that were killed for lack of money in the final days of the session.

State Finance Commissioner Rebecca Wyke has projected that the revenue surplus could be as much as $60 million when all revenues are counted after June 30.

“There would have been just tremendous pressure to spend that unrealized money if we did it for anything,” said Rep. Joseph Brannigan, D-Portland, co-chairman of the Appropriations Committee. “So we worked to come up with a resolve to direct the governor submit legislation for what we could not find the money for this time.”

Baldacci had urged lawmakers to put additional money in a disaster reserve fund created earlier this year in legislation crafted by the Legislature’s Homeland Security Task Force. Under that law, $500,000 from a state surplus goes into the fund every year until it is capped at $3 million.

He said that would give him the flexibility to address the expected claims from the York County flooding.

House Speaker John Richardson, D-Brunswick, said Republicans would not agree to any language that would increase the fund and give the governor the flexibility he sought.

“There was a hesitancy on the part of some Republicans not to provide the governor with that kind of discretion,” Richardson said. “And one might argue they didn’t want to do that because they didn’t want to give him discretionary money to be spending just before an election.”

That inference infuriated Rep. David Bowles, R-Sanford, the House GOP leader. He said it was Republicans who had pushed for more disaster funding, and he denied there had ever been a discussion about the political ramifications of the legislation on the governor’s race.

Brannigan and Rep. Glenn Cummings, D-Portland, the House Democratic leader, said they had not heard of any such discussions either.

“I don’t think that was an issue,” he said. “There was bipartisan agreement we should get the money out to the towns as soon as possible. Where there was disagreement was on whether we could spend money we didn’t have.”