State Rep. Lee Nerison (R-Westby) has authored an amendment to the 2009-2011 state budget seeking to allocate $19.5 million for dam safety grants.

The move comes in response to pleas from Vernon County and other municipalities throughout the state that are struggling to find money to make necessary repairs to dams to protect both lives and property. The amendment is borne out of work his staff has done in the last two years since the historic floods of August 2007 and June 2008.

Nerison said that in late May, the State Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee voted to allocate an additional $4 million for the DNR’s dam safety grant program.

The $4 million allocation was a trigger to seek the $19.5 million, which actually would come from an increase in the budget for the DNR’s stewardship program.

"A paper put out by the fiscal bureau said the stewardship fund is a possible place to get money for something like this," Nerison said, Tuesday morning, in a telephone interview from his Madison office. "The money the DNR is to get for land acquisition is to increase from $42.5 million to $62 million in 2010. What this does is takes that $19.5 million and uses it to repair high-hazard dams."

Considerable damage still exists since the flooding occurred. Vernon County still has approximately $12 million in dam repairs to make. Nerison said $82.5 million in dam repairs are needed in 31 separate Wisconsin counties.

Should Nerison’s amendment be approved, preference would be given for grant applications for high-hazard dams, such as the PL-566 flood-control structures in Vernon County. The state would pay 75 percent of the costs, up to $500,000 per project. The $500,000 cap would ensure individual projects don’t need separate approval through the state building commission, Nerison said.

Nerison said he would begin to see if the amendment has support from his Republican colleagues at a caucus, Tuesday. He said he would cross over to the Democratic aisle and see if the amendment could get the necessary traction there.

"I really don’t know what kind of support it will have at this point," Nerison said.

The assembly was expected to begin working on the budget, Wednesday.

Should the assembly approve the bill, it would go to the state senate to be amended and voted on before heading to Gov. Jim Doyle’s desk to be signed into law.