Stonington — Town officials are assuring residents that they are working diligently to correct the problems that led to homeowners with flood insurance to lose their annual 5 percent discount.

“We’re not resting. Everyday I’m in (the town engineer’s office) asking, ‘How are we doing? What are we doing to fix this?’” First Selectman George Crouse told residents at Wednesday’s Board of Selectmen meeting.

But town officials could not say when the discount will be restored for the 1,030 affected homeowners.

Meanwhile, some Mystic residents have demanded that the town reimburse them for the loss or possibly face a class-action lawsuit.

Resident Tom Norris said the loss will cost homeowners a total of $109,000 this year even though the loss is the fault of the town and FEMA.

“I’m mad as hell. I want policy owners to be made whole again. We should be able to submit a bill to the town and then be reimbursed,” he told selectmen.

Two weeks ago, The Day reported that homeowners whose policies were coming up for renewal were being told they no longer qualified for the discount because the town had not addressed some deficiencies found in its flood planning by a FEMA audit.

Those deficiencies needed to be corrected to qualify for the discount under the Community Rating System. The problems do not affect borough homeowners who continue to qualify for an even larger discount of 10 percent.

The average discount is $80, according to the town.

The cost increase is compounded by the annual rate increase homeowners face each year as the federal program tries to make the program actuarially sound.

Crouse and Town Engineer Scot Deledda said that a FEMA audit revealed that eight properties lacked flood elevation certificates or had other problems that needed to be corrected.

The town has been inspecting the properties to confirm the problems and talking to the homeowners as well as working closely with state and FEMA officials.

Deledda, who began working for the town in June of 2014, said it appears that FEMA had found some deficiencies in the town’s plan before he came on board and they were never addressed.

The town had a four-month period in which it had no flood plain manager after town engineer Larry Sullivan resigned in February of 2014. Deledda said he was never made aware of the deficiencies when he took over.

Crouse said the town has restored the $2,000 stipend for the flood plain manager position, appointing Deledda to the position and sending him to training.

The Community Rating System has been developed to provide incentives in the form of premium discounts for communities to go beyond the minimum flood plain management requirements to develop extra measures to provide protection from flooding.

j.wojtas@theday.com

Twitter: @joewojtas