Beaufort County commissioners voted Monday to reduce Belhaven’s bill for EMS services.

Commissioners voted 6-1 to decrease the 2015 bill for White Oak EMS’ services from $152,000 to $89,100. Commissioner Hood Richardson was the sole dissenting vote, citing the closure of Belhaven’s Vidant Pungo Hospital two years ago, and the county’s lack of assistance in reopening the hospital under private management, as the ultimate cause of the hefty bill.

County Manager Brian Alligood said the bill’s increase last year was due to the increase in White Oak’s Belhaven coverage from one full-time paramedic-manned ambulance to two full-time ambulances, the second one manned by an Intermediate-level EMT.

During the meeting, Belhaven Mayor Adam O’Neal told commissioners that in order to pay the full bill, the town would have to raise the EMS tax to 12 cents per $100 property valuation, two and half times the next highest rate charged in any EMS district in the county.

“That is so unfair that I shouldn’t have to come up here and talk about it,” O’Neal said.

Currently, the Town of Belhaven bills its residents 7 cents per $100 property valuation for the town’s share of White Oak’s services, which for the past four years has been 25 percent of the total cost of that service, or roughly $90,000. The county picks up the remainder of the cost.

Residents throughout the county pay widely varying amounts, from 1.3 cents per $100 in Bath to 5 cents per $100 in Pantego — an issue county officials are hoping to resolve during the 2016-17 county budgeting process, as commissioners consider taking a leadership role over all county EMS services.

In 2009, the Board of Commissioners and the Pantego/Belhaven EMS committee worked out an agreement to split the cost of EMS services, but when the hospital closed its doors in 2014, the need for more coverage arose. While the

split of costs and increased service was discussed and approved by committee members, it was never approved by Belhaven’s town council and there was no official contract between the county and the town, according to Alligood. Town officials were caught unprepared by the amount of last year’s bill, according to O’Neal.

Commissioner Robert Belcher, who sits on that EMS committee, along with Richardson, said it was his understanding that Belhaven’s former town manager, Guinn Leveritt, was supposed to get approval from the town, but the vote apparently never happened.

“What you’re saying is absolutely true,” O’Neal responded, adding that the county had also failed to follow up on Belhaven’s approval of the deal. “Your county manager should have been chasing that dog.”

At the time the approval for increased White Oak service was made, Beaufort County’s manager was Randell Woodruff.

O’Neal told commissioners he thought they should decrease the amount of the 2015 bill so it would equal what the town would pay if Belhaven’s EMS tax rate was 5 cents per $100 valuation — the next highest county EMS tax rate — rather than the 7 cents per $100 currently paid.

Commissioners Belcher and Frankie Waters both said further reduction wasn’t the deal Belhaven had with the county over the past several years. Waters, instead, made the motion to reduce the amount to $89,100.