The debate over the best way to the Halifax County 911 Center came to a close today as commissioners voted to phase out a population credit over the next four years and go to a call volume basis.

Commissioners agreed to phase out the credit by 25 percent over the next four years after board member Marcelle Smith made the motion to do so.

The population credit was put in place in 2003 to eliminate what many municipalities charged was a double taxation.

“I’m not making the recommendation based on saving money,” County Manager Tony Brown told the board. “It’s supposed to be fair … it should be a shared process.”

The problem the credit posed was that Scotland Neck would end up paying nothing. “We’re trying to fix the matrix,” Brown said during the meeting. “Now that call volume dropped we wanted to fix the issue. We want to find a way to have a long-term solution.”

Board Chair James Pierce said the problem came when municipalities found ways to circumvent the 911 Center through cell phones and computers.

Commissioner Vernon Bryant said his only concern was that he hoped small towns would not suffer by the reduction.

Pierce said, however, like in water and power bills, there has to be a minimum a municipality must pay.

Brown said while municipalities have the option of getting out of the system, the new funding plan “Is way less than setting up a shift process. They have the option to pull out and do their own dispatching. If they did that I would encourage them to do the math. There is no means Scotland Neck could do dispatching for $6,000 a year.”