The city estimated Wednesday that the bill for the Loop floodcould hit about $40 million but contended the federal government willpick up most of the tab.
Mayor Daley repeated his pledge to tighten the city's beltrather than raise taxes to meet flood costs, while Gov. Edgarcautioned that the total bill "could be more."
Daley and city Budget Director Karen Danczak-Lyons releasedpreliminary figures showing a $37.3 million bill "to date" foremergency, cleanup and tunnel repair work since the April 13 flood.
Cleanup and repair costs at City Hall itself are stillundetermined, Danczak-Lyons said, and those and other expenses couldpush up the $37.3 million figure.
That amount does not include the potential costs of legalliability for damages, losses incurred by the CTA and other agencies,downtown business losses or the cost of repairs to the tunnel systemafter permanent bulkheads are installed at the Kinzie Street Bridgeleak site.
Daley said the federal government would pay all but about $10.5million of the $37.3 million. The state already has contributed $3million, leaving Chicago and the state to haggle over how to splitthe remaining $7.5 million.
Costs identified by the city include: $3.6 million for workers' pay, overtime and benefits during thefirst five days of the emergency. $4.5 million paid to Kenny Construction Co., divers and othercontractors hired to stop the tunnel leak at Kinzie. $165,000 in lost utility, lodging and other taxes because of thetemporary Loop business shutdown.
While the city acknowledged that its estimates were preliminary,Toni Hartrich, research director for the Civic Federation, ataxpayers' watchdog group, said: "Heaven only knows what the (final)number is. The question is what it's going to work out to in thelong run."
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