By Diana McFarland

News editor

The Isle of Wight Board of Supervisors on Thursday will consider a petition filed by two volunteer fire departments to receive quarterly contributions that were withheld from the previous fiscal year.

It’s been more than a year since the Windsor and Carrollton volunteer fire departments stopped receiving quarterly payments after refusing to sign the county’s facilities use agreement. Meanwhile, the county’s remaining five fire and rescue organizations have signed the agreement.{mprestriction ids=”1,2,3,4,5,6″}

Instead, Windsor and Carrollton have relied on reserves and fundraisers to operate their stations, according to a press release from Windsor and Carrollton.

Funding was cut off July 1, 2014.

For fiscal 2015, Carrollton was budgeted for $254,536 and Windsor was budgeted for $122,918.

In addition to responding to fire calls, Carrollton also maintains an EMS unit.

Since then, the two departments have submitted a compromise agreement, which the remaining five fire and rescue organizations agreed to support. The Board declined to accept compromise agreement and issued its own revision of the original agreement. Windsor and Carrollton rejected that agreement.

There have been numerous “sticking points,” as described by Emergency Services Chief Jeff Terwilliger, including free grass cutting, concerns about the use of the building for fundraisers and how a memorandum of understanding between the WVFD, the town of Windsor and Isle of Wight County would be addressed under the proposed facilities use agreement.

Members of both departments have been regular and outspoken attendees at Board meetings concerning the issue.

The facilities use agreement was conceived as a way to standardize the maintenance and use of the seven county-owned buildings.{/mprestriction}