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County emergency management briefs supervisors on state request about disaster recovery and drainage districts; no immediate action
Summary
Pottawattamie County Emergency Management explained a state request about disaster recovery projects and liability for drainage/levee districts using the county UEI/DUNS number; staff urged caution and said no resolution is required immediately.
Doug Reed, director of the Pottawattamie County Emergency Management Agency, updated the Board of Supervisors on a recent state discussion about 2024 disaster recovery projects and whether county boards should adopt a blanket resolution accepting financial responsibility for drainage and levee districts that use the county’s federal vendor identifier (UEI).
Reed said state administrators had proposed that “all the board of supervisors adopt a resolution” that, in his words, would require counties to accept broad financial responsibility for districts that use the county’s UEI. He told the supervisors he objected to the proposed language because it was too broad and could create unquantified liability: “and the part I didn't like, is that you accept all financial responsibility.”
Reed described multiple governance arrangements across Iowa — some drainage or levee districts are run by independently elected trustees with their own UEI numbers, while others use the county’s UEI because the drainage clerk at the county auditor’s office processes the funds. That variation, he said, creates complications for state and federal cost‑recovery if overpayments or estimate errors occur.
He told the board there was no immediate need for a county resolution: state officials were reassessing the issue and exploring whether administrative fixes (for example, asking districts to obtain their own UEI numbers) or a memorandum of understanding could be a better path. Reed said the “100% fix” would be to have each drainage district obtain its own UEI number so responsibility is clear.
Supervisors and staff discussed cross‑county districts, the practical difficulty of financing levies in sparsely populated districts, and an ongoing lawsuit involving one local district. County staff said they would watch the state's follow‑up with federal partners and bring a formal proposal back to the board if necessary.
No formal resolution or vote was taken; Reed and county attorneys recommended further clarification of the term “financial responsibility” before the board would consider any binding county‑level action.
