Weighing Costs of Who Pays For Niles Flood Relief

The Niles village board is trying to solve the village's flooding problems, and that gave rise to a spirited discussion at its last meeting about who gets the money, and how to balance helping individual residents who have flooding problems against all the other costs the village faces--such as the ongoing albatross of funding fire and police pensions.

After two floods hit Niles hard this spring--on April 18 and June 26--the village saw a large uptick in the number of residents applying for flood relief assistance. Mayor Andrew Przybylo observed that village staff have pinpointed 600 homes with flooding issues.

The Niles village board last year allotted $300,000 in its budget to help flooded residents pay for big-ticket items, such as a check valve or overhead sewers, to prevent flooding in their homes. Under this flood prevention assistance program, the village will pay matching funds up to $4,000 to an individual homeowner who meets the guidelines.

At the July 23 village board meeting, Trustee Joe LoVerde announced that the village received so many requests for financial assistance that the board would vote on allotting an additional $750,000, from the General Fund to the flood relief program.

That represents a big shift in the budget the board passed in May.

Trustee Rosemary Palicki suggested that before the board voted to move an additional $750,000 into the flood assistance program, it consider that it has other big expenses, such as funding fire and police pensions, the litigation costs of the "water wars" with Glenview and upcoming union requests for employee salary increases.

She expressed concern that if the significant chunk of money were taken out of the General Fund and pensions were not funded at an adequate rate, the village's bond rating would be downgraded.

She proposed a motion for a graduated system of relief to flood-prone homeowners, with those who earn less than the Census-determined median income of about $50,800 to receive the full reimbursement of $4,000 from the village, and those who earn progressively more receiving progressively less. However, that motion died for lack of a second. 

Louella Preston, a citizen who was a longtime trustee until April, spoke during the citizen comment period, saying she understood the pain of those who flooded, but noting that her property tax bill said she was paying $410 to the village of Niles, and that getting $4,000 from the village amounted to a 10-year tax abatement for those who received one.

She also said that in arriving at the fiscal year 2014 budget, the board trimmed hundreds of thousands of dollars requested by department heads. 

Expressing worry the program was costing taxpayers too much, she said, "I'm concerned about 'no parameters' to this."

Trustee Joe LoVerde responded by saying the village was doing the responsible thing by protecting the health, welfare and property values of its residents. 

"It's not an open checkbook," he said, explaining the village was monitoring the costs, and incoming revenue from sales tax, carefully.

"These are our public sewers. We've done two years of studies that have proven they're inadequate," he said. "So why would we not address this?"

Trustee George Alpogianis said, "The solution is not to cut, but to bring more money into the village."
  
Trustees voted 5-1 to put the additional $750,000 toward providing financial assistance to individual homeowners putting in flood relief equipment. That creates a total of $1.2 million in the program.

If all 600 homes were to receive a $4,000 grant, that would add up to $2.4 million. 

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