Wisconsin Pre-Disaster Flood Resilience Grant Program

Wisconsin’s Pre-Disaster Flood Resilience Grant program, established in 2024 through Wisconsin Act 265, aims to improve disaster resilience by helping communities assess flood vulnerabilities, identify potential solutions, and improve resilience through hydrological restoration efforts. The program is administered by Wisconsin Emergency Management, a division of the Department of Military Affairs. The program provides funding to help flood prone communities in two forms: assessment grants and implementation grants. 

Eligible entities for Wisconsin’s Pre-Disaster Flood Resilience Grant Program include cities, villages, towns, counties, regional planning commissions, or federally recognized tribal governments in Wisconsin. Nonprofits and private consultants applying on behalf of one or more eligible governmental units are also able to apply, and the program allows for joint applications from multiple governmental units working together on a shared watershed or project area.

To qualify, applications must meet one of these two conditions:

  1. The project area must include a location that experienced a presidentially declared disaster or governor-issued state of emergency for flooding within the 10 years before applying, or
  2. The application must be for a local government that has a Wisconsin Emergency Management approved hazard mitigation plan specifically identifying localized flood risk exposure. 

The program aims to further flood resilience by integrating approaches of emergency management, hazard mitigation planning, and local climate adaptation governance. The program emphasizes nature-based and systemic solutions by using ecological restoration as a tool for effective flood mitigation.

The grant program supports two project types:

  • Assessment Grants: This grant funds technical studies such as hydrologic and hydraulic modeling, flood vulnerability assessments, analysis identifying opportunities to restore natural floodplain function, and culvert inventories that account for structural risk, aquatic organism passage, and hydrologic conditions upstream. The maximum award is $300,000. 
  • Implementation Grants: This grant funds hydrologic restoration projects that have been identified or designed through an assessment grant or comparable assessment process. Hydrologic restoration projects must be designed to achieve one or more of a specified set of goals, such as reconnecting streams and floodplains, mitigating erosion, or reestablishing stabilizing vegetation, among other purposes. The maximum award is $250,000.

For every dollar awarded in assessment grants within a fiscal biennium, the program may award no more than $0.67 in implementation grants. This provision keeps the program weighted toward planning and data-collection relative to construction spending. Both grant types require applicants to cover a portion of total project costs. The grant program operates on a straightforward split where the state government provides 75% of total project costs and the applicant must secure 25% of total project cost. In both grant types, the statute allows for local shares to be met through in-kind contributions, including goods, services, and administrative costs, which can help lower capacity jurisdictions meet the cost-share requirements more easily.  

The Pre-Disaster Flood Resilience Grant Program is codified at Wisconsin Statutes § 323.63 and administered by the Wisconsin Division of Emergency Management on an annual grant cycle. Grant recipients are required to expend all awarded funds within two years of receipt and must submit a project completion report to WEM within 90 days of project completion or at the two year mark, whichever date comes first. Notably, the statute provides an administrative exception to the two year spending deadline: WEM may extend the timeline to align with the requirements of a concurrent federal grant. This flexibility allows applicants pursue layered funding strategies. 

WEM is required to submit an annual report to the Governor and the appropriate standing committees of the Wisconsin Legislature no later than July 1 of each year. The report includes program activities, accomplishments, grant recipients, award amounts, and a recommendation on program continuation and funding levels. This reporting requirement is waived only in years where no funds were appropriated to the program and all previously appropriated funds have already been expended and reported on.

Publication Date: April 3, 2024

Related Organizations:

  • Wisconsin Emergency Management Department of Military Affairs

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  • Funding program

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