29C.20 Contingent fund — disaster aid.

1. a. A contingent fund is created in the state treasury for the use of the executive council. Funding for the contingent fund, if authorized by the executive council, shall be paid from the appropriations addressed in section 7D.29. Moneys in the contingent fund may be expended for the following purposes:

(1) Paying the expenses of suppressing an insurrection or riot, actual or threatened, when state aid has been rendered by order of the governor.

(2) Repairing, rebuilding, or restoring state property injured, destroyed, or lost by fire, storm, theft, or unavoidable cause.

(3) Repairing, rebuilding, or restoring state property that is fiberoptic cable and that is injured or destroyed by a wild animal.

(4) Purchasing a police service dog for the department of corrections when such a dog is injured or destroyed.

(5) Paying the expenses incurred by and claims of a homeland security and emergency response team when acting under the authority of section 29C.8, public health response teams when acting under the provisions of section 135.143, and a party state rendering assistance under the provisions of section 29C.21.

(6) (a) Aiding any governmental subdivision in an area declared by the governor to be a disaster area due to natural disasters or to expenditures necessitated by the governmental subdivision toward averting or lessening the impact of the potential disaster, where the effect of the disaster or action on the governmental subdivision is the immediate financial inability to meet the continuing requirements of local government.

(b) Upon application by a governmental subdivision in such an area, accompanied by a showing of obligations and expenditures necessitated by an actual or potential disaster in a form and with further information the executive council requires, the aid may be made in the discretion of the executive council and, if made, shall be in the nature of a loan up to a limit of seventy-five percent of the showing of obligations and expenditures. The loan, without interest, shall be repaid by the maximum annual emergency levy authorized by section 24.6, or by the appropriate levy authorized for a governmental subdivision not covered by section 24.6. The aggregate total of loans shall not exceed one million dollars during a fiscal year. A loan shall not be for an obligation or expenditure occurring more than two years previous to the application.

b. When a state department or agency requests that moneys from the contingent fund be expended to repair, rebuild, or restore state property injured, destroyed, or lost by fire, storm, theft, or unavoidable cause, or to repair, rebuild, or restore state property that is fiberoptic cable and that is injured or destroyed by a wild animal, or to purchase a police service dog for the department of corrections when such a dog is injured or destroyed, or for payment of the expenses incurred by and claims of a homeland security and emergency response team when acting under the authority of section 29C.8, the executive council shall consider the original source of the funds for acquisition of the property before authorizing the expenditure. If the original source was other than the general fund of the state, the department or agency shall be directed to utilize moneys from the original source if possible. The executive council shall not authorize the repairing, rebuilding, or restoring of the property from the disaster aid contingent fund if it determines that moneys from the original source are available to finance the project.

2. The proceeds of such loan shall be applied toward the payment of costs and obligations necessitated by such actual or potential disaster and the reimbursement of local funds from which such expenditures have been made. Any such project for repair, rebuilding or restoration of state property for which no specific appropriation has been made, shall, before work is begun, be subject to approval or rejection by the executive council.

3. If the president of the United States, at the request of the governor, has declared a major disaster to exist in this state, the executive council may make financial grants to meet disaster-related necessary expenses, serious needs, or hazard mitigation projects of local governments and eligible private nonprofit agencies adversely affected by the major disaster if those expenses or needs cannot otherwise be met from other means of assistance. The amount of the grant shall not exceed ten percent of the total eligible expenses and is conditional upon the federal government providing at least seventy-five percent for public assistance grants and at least fifty percent for hazard mitigation grants of the eligible expenses.

4. If the president, at the request of the governor, has declared a major disaster to exist in this state, the executive council may make financial grants to meet disaster-related necessary expenses or serious needs of individuals or families adversely affected by a major disaster which cannot otherwise adequately be met from other means of assistance. The amount of a financial grant shall not exceed the maximum federal authorization in the aggregate to an individual or family in any single major disaster declared by the president. All grants authorized to individuals and families will be subject to the federal government providing no less than seventy-five percent of each grant and the declaration of a major disaster in the state by the president of the United States.

5. If the president, at the request of the governor, has declared a major disaster to exist in this state, the executive council may lease or purchase sites and develop such sites to accommodate temporary housing units for disaster victims.

6. For the purposes of this section, “governmental subdivision” means any political subdivision of this state.

[C73, §120; C97, §170; C24, 27, 31, 35, 39, §286; C46, 50, 54, 58, 62, 66, 71, 73, 75, §19.7; C77, 79, 81, §29C.20]

85 Acts, ch 53, §2; 85 Acts, ch 195, §6

; 89 Acts, ch 315, §27

; 92 Acts, ch 1139, §18; 97 Acts, ch 210, §19; 2003 Acts, ch 155, §1; 2003 Acts, ch 179, §105; 2005 Acts, ch 89, §1; 2006 Acts, ch 1185, §63, 64; 2011 Acts, ch 131, §23, 158; 2016 Acts, ch 1028, §2

Referred to in §7D.29, 29A.27