The Monroe County Flood Prevention District, a three-person committee appointed by the Monroe County Board of Commissioners, approved a recommendation Tuesday night to impose a 1/4 cent sales tax in order to pay for area levee upgrades. The proposed tax hike now goes before the Board, which can authorize the increase without public referendum, for approval.
Earlier this year, the Illinois General Assembly passed SB836 and SB2052, authorizing the formation of flood protection districts by the three counties in the Metro East. These new districts have been expected to seek to raise revenues needed to fund levee repair work--taxes that will start being collected in the spring of 2009--allowing them to pay for levee repairs now and be reimbursed by sales taxes later.
The new districts are part of a regional effort involving Madison, St. Clair and Monroe counties as well as 25 cities and villages to restore certification for the five levees between Wood River and Columbia that protect the Metro East’s flood plain. This flood plain is home to more than 150,000 people and 50,000 jobs. The regional effort is needed because the infrastructure of roads, transportation, and jobs in the American Bottoms is a shared resource and because the five levees represent an interdependent system that is hydrologically connected.
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