Haywood County commissioners on Aug. 18 approved moving forward with Insight Consulting Group LLC to prepare Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) applications for the county and its residents.

Cody Grasty, recovery and resilience officer for Haywood County, said the county solicited proposals after the state and FEMA backlog slowed application processing following Tropical Storm Fred. "We had over 80 applicants for acquisition alone," Grasty said, describing the volume of requests from homeowners. He told the board that selecting a county contractor could shorten the state-led application process by roughly two to four months and, in some scenarios, compress rounds of FEMA requests-for-information to save as much as six to eight months overall.

The request approved by the board asks staff to negotiate a contract with Insight Consulting and authorize the county manager to execute final documents. Grasty said the county can fund the contractor work as pre-award costs and seek reimbursement through FEMA once projects are approved, or use advanced assistance so the county does not front unreimbursed monies beyond a brief turnaround period. "Insight has agreed to that," Grasty said, referring to the contractor's willingness to seek pre-authorization for work that might fall outside HMGP reimbursement rules.

Grasty told the board that the county has seen more than 100 mitigation applications across types (acquisition, landslide, elevation) and that Insight brings staffing bandwidth and subject-matter experience — including leadership familiar with state hazard-mitigation work — to help move applications toward closing. Commissioners asked how many other counties are using the approach; Grasty said it is a permissible, though not widely used, option.

The motion to approve the selection and authorize negotiation passed unanimously.

The county emphasized that most contractor costs are expected to be reimbursed by federal funding; staff said the county will require pre-authorization for any costs that fall outside HMGP reimbursement rules. County officials also noted that while the contractor can shorten processing time, approvals and closings will still be constrained by federal procedures and schedules.