Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

The Windsor Town Council voted 4-0 on Tuesday, Nov. 1, to place a nearly $13,400 refund received by the town into a budget line item that would allow the money to be sent back to Isle of Wight County Emergency Communications to help fund a new computer-aided dispatch system.

Vice Mayor Greg Willis and Councilwoman Kelly Blankenship were not present at the Nov. 1 council meeting.

Windsor Town Manager William Saunders introduced the budget appropriation agenda item by noting that following a “true-up” of the Isle of Wight County Emergency Communications (Dispatch) fiscal year 2022 budget, a refund was sent to the town by the county for overpayment.

“What is the definition of a ‘true-up’?” Councilman Walter Bernacki asked.

Saunders replied, “When they finally finish their audit on their books, then they determine — if we underpaid, they send us an invoice for the difference, and if we overpaid, they send us a refund check.”

The town manager noted that the town received $13,387.91 in the refund, and he said that this should be applied to the town’s FY23 budget.

“In this regard, I’m enclosing a resolution for your consideration to apply these funds to the Miscellaneous Revenue line item of the general fund and to add the same amount to the Payments to Other Governments expenditure line item in the FY23 budget,” he said.

He stated that he recommended adoption of the resolution.

“The reason that I recommend putting this overage back into the Payments to Other Governments expenditure line is that Dispatch is about to enter into a contract for a new CAD system, and they may be doing that mid-year, so there could be some unexpected costs mid-year due to that,” Saunders said. “So I’d like to just go ahead and put this right back into that same line.”

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security notes on its website that computer-aided dispatch systems “are utilized by dispatchers, call-takers and 911 operators to prioritize and record incident calls, identify the status and location of responders in the field and effectively dispatch responder personnel.”