JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS

Iowa City asks Johnson County for more Direct Assistance funds

By Paul D. Bowker
Posted 9/9/22

IOWA CITY

The Johnson County Board of Supervisors chambers was packed again at its August 10 work session.

Eight county residents, who were hoping to convince the board to free up more …

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JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS

Iowa City asks Johnson County for more Direct Assistance funds

Posted

IOWA CITY

The Johnson County Board of Supervisors chambers was packed again at its August 10 work session.

Eight county residents, who were hoping to convince the board to free up more funds for the Direct Assistance pandemic relief program, spoke for more than 30 minutes. Among those in the audience was Iowa City Mayor Bruce Teague, who spoke to the board later in its meeting.

The county used $2 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to finance most of the Direct Assistance Program. Iowa City and Coralville also contributed.

While the program resulted in one-time payments of $1,400 to 1,919 applicants, including some from Lone Tree, another 319 were left out due to a lottery system that was utilized to determine which residents would get the payments because the number of eligible applicants outnumbered the available funds.

And that’s where it gets muddy.

Johnson County used all of its allocated $2 million for the project (the county has a number of other projects slated to receive another $27 million in ARPA funds). Coralville used all of its $27,000 in pledged funds. But Iowa City used about half of its $1.35 million allocation, mostly due to a subrecipient agreement that was executed with the county.

But now there is a push to cover the other 319 eligible applicants at a cost of $446,600, plus administrative fees.

Iowa City’s city council is asking the county to share that expense in a 50-50 split.

The county supervisors unanimously turned that down at its work session, instead suggesting an option that would change the subrecipient agreement to cover the 319. It would end up costing Iowa City about $1.2 million of its $1.35 million allocation.

County supervisors Pat Heiden and Lisa Green-Douglass said they didn’t want to spend another $220,000 in county ARPA funds that are targeted for other projects.

Until Iowa City’s council met again this week, the two governing bodies seemed stuck.

“Every day that we continue negotiations it makes the likelihood of paying the 319 outstanding claimants less likely,” said Supervisor Jon Green of Lone Tree, who also suggested an option of using bank-interest money from the ARPA funds to help pay the applicants.

“I don’t want to see the 319 people go unserved,” Supervisor Rod Sullivan said.

“Bottom line is,” Sullivan added, “I think it’s really important we not argue with our friends in Iowa City. There’s only three municipalities in the entire state that did this. It’s Johnson County, Iowa City and Coralville. I really don’t think we should be critical of each other when we’re the ones that actually did this.”

At the same work session, David Frisvold, an economic professor at the University of Iowa, proposed partnering with Johnson County on a study of the Direct Assistance Program through a number of surveys that would be sent to program recipients.

At its formal session August 11, the board approved the rezoning, from agricultural to residential, of a property located southwest of Hills. The David and Karen Baculis rezoning covers 1.47 acres and is located on the west side of Observatory Avenue SW, north of 560th Street SW.

Windham Village

A meeting to continue creating a village plan for the Windham Village area, north of Frytown, has been set for 6 p.m. Aug. 29 at Renee’s Roadhouse, 1747 Black Diamond Road SW.

The meeting, coordinated by the Johnson County Planning, Development and Sustainability Dept., is open to area residents, property owners and other interested persons. The meeting is intended for idea sharing and a question-and-answer session, as well as reviewing goals and a vision statement that were drafted out of a previous planning session in July.

Johnson County, Iowa City, ARPA, Direct Assistance