Buncombe County has spent or dedicated more than $26 million toward Tropical Storm Helene recovery efforts so far and has gone public with the details using an online dashboard.

Buncombe has spent $9.07 million in the two months since the disaster and has contracted with more than 60 entities for an additional $17.5 million. About $12 million of the contracts are dedicated to three companies –– a disaster recovery consultant and two services related to debris recovery.

Asheville Watchdog reported Nov. 14 that the city of Asheville had committed $21.7 million to disaster recovery, with the largest portion of the money going toward emergency repairs on its damaged water distribution system. Combined with the Buncombe expenditures, the total for storm recovery comes to $47.7 million.

County officials unveiled the details of the fiscal toll leveled by the storm when they announced at Monday’s daily Helene briefing that the online dashboard was up and running.

The county’s dashboard shows specifics about the spending, delineating and categorizing individual expenditures. 

Money already spent is labeled and categorized in the dashboard — $3.5 million went toward payroll and benefits and $3.4 million went toward contracted services.

The payroll and benefits are overtime related to the storm response, county spokesperson Kassi Day said.

The dashboard will be updated monthly along with the closing of the county’s ledger, Day said.

The largest contracts that the county has committed to include: 

• $8.03 million for Tetra Tech Inc, a disaster recovery consultant
• $2.8 million for DebrisTech, a debris removal monitoring service
• $2.4 million for Southern Disaster Recovery, a debris removal service
• $1.03 million for MHC Kenworth to replace six dump trucks at the county’s  transfer station
• $689,693 for EnviroServ to bring potable water to the county jail
• $665,400 for Hale Trailer Brake & Wheel to replace six refuse trailers at the transfer station
• $371,613 for Cotton Commercial USA for emergency mitigation services

Details about the contracts are not posted on the dashboard. 

When asked why, Buncombe County’s Financial Planning and Analysis Manager Matt Evans said the contracts “are not completed accounting transactions and are more fluid” than actual spending. Evans said that once there is actual spending, the dashboard will include the details.

Like the city of Asheville, Buncombe will seek reimbursements from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“We will be requesting reimbursements for expenses, but we will not know the status of those until approved,” spokesperson Lillian Govus said.

When those payments come in, however, they won’t be reflected on the dashboard, Day said, citing FEMA’s lengthy reimbursement process. 

Asheville’s transparency efforts pending

As of Nov. 27, the city of Asheville did not have a public-facing method to show exactly how it’s using taxpayer dollars on Helene recovery. 

After The Watchdog obtained documents that revealed the city’s Helene spending, City Councilmember Kim Roney said the city was working with an emergency management consulting firm, Hagerty Consulting Inc., to create a public dashboard.

Asked this week when the city’s transparency effort would move forward, spokesperson Kim Miller said various arms of the government are working on it but did not provide details. 

“In our continued commitment to transparency with the community, development of the City’s dashboard is currently underway,” Miller said. “City Council will have an opportunity to provide feedback on some of the preliminary data that we plan to make available in a public dashboard at the December 5 Agenda Briefing meeting.”

With Buncombe and the city of Asheville’s expenditures and commitments totaling more than $47 million, area leaders say they need more financial assistance and traveled to Washington, D.C., on Nov. 20 to meet with President Joe Biden and members of Congress to ask for aid. 

Those requests totaled more than $2 billion, The Watchdog reported Nov. 19. 

Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. Andrew R. Jones is a Watchdog investigative reporter. Email arjones@avlwatchdog.org. The Watchdog’s local reporting during this crisis is made possible by donations from the community. To show your support for this vital public service go to avlwatchdog.org/support-our-publication/.

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