A second round of federal money to help businesses and individuals with disaster recovery is on the way to Iowa. Governor Chet Culver says the 72-million dollars in the second round was below the 85-million dollars approved in the first round because of more competition.
Culver says the difference is that Iowa had to compete against 15 other states for the disaster funds. He says they were hoping the state would get more money in the second round, but understand there are more needs across the nation. Culver says Iowa only competed with three other states for the first round of money in what are called Community Development Block Grants.
But, Culver says overall, Iowa is getting money into the pipeline to help with recovery efforts. Culver says the other way to look at it is there has been 300 million dollars in federal funds distributed, and Iowa has gotten 50-percent of that money. He says while that is good, the state is still going to need more help. Culver says federal officials have told him Iowa will get more money in the next round of funding.
Culver says Congress appropriately six-point-five billion dollars in their more recent move, and the law says that 2.2 billion dollars of that money must be sent out by December 1st. Culver says he expects Iowa to get a big chunk of that next appropriation, but he says this time Iowa will be one of 23 states competing for the funds. Culver says they will move forward in distributing the money that’s already been granted to the state.
Culver says they will continue to focus a "significant amount" of this federal on housing and business assistance in handing out the federal funds. But Culver says they have flexibility in the next 72-million dollars to shift the allocation of the funds if there’s a fall off in applications for housing and business assistance.
Culver says they could then shift their money to buyouts and other disaster programs. Culver says one of the key issues is to get everyone registered with FEMA by the October deadline. He says you must be registered with FEMA to be eligible for any of the federal recovery funds.