The Town of Windsor has entered into an agreement with Isle of Wight County on funding for a capital repair/replacement of Windsor Town Center’s roof.

The Windsor Town Council voted unanimously May 4 to enter into the agreement, with special emphasis given to the date of payments.

In a memo to the mayor and Town Council, Town Manager William Saunders stated that since the town will be receiving real estate taxes on June 5 each year moving forward, consideration should be given to making the town center roof payments at the end of the fiscal year, such as June 15. He added that consideration should also be given to going ahead and making the first payment this year, since the town is receiving six months of unappropriated real estate taxes on June 5.

The agreement states that Isle of Wight County will provide upfront funding for the estimated cost of the project without interest to the town so as to facilitate payment of the repairs.

The estimated cost totals $358,663. The agreement notes the town agrees to reimburse the county half of the cost, specifically $179,331. This reimbursement will happen across five equal annual payments of $35,866 each June 15, beginning this year.

“We’ve had to pay some of the cost of the roof upfront to get the project going, and that was included in the cost estimate for the entire project that we gave to the county,” Saunders said in a May 5 interview.

Saunders suggested that as the project concludes and the actual cost of it is known, if it is significantly different from the estimated cost, the town could do a “true-up.” He described a true-up as changing the estimate to the true cost in the agreement and then having the parties make the appropriate payment to each other to make things right based on that true cost.

If the actual cost of the Windsor Town Center roof capital repair/replacement ends up being close to the estimated $358,663, then the town will probably just let it stay the way it is in the agreement, Saunders said.

“But if the project’s either a lot cheaper or a lot more expensive than what we’ve estimated, then I think we should probably, at that point, go back to the county and say, ‘Hey, look, it’s different than what we estimated. Let’s amend the agreement to true it up,’” he said. “And then probably on our last payment, we could either make it smaller or larger to make it trued-up.”