WINDSOR – Officials in the Bertie County municipal seat are turning to experts for assistance.

During Thursday morning’s meeting of the Windsor Board of Commissioners, the board approved a $15,500 contract with Power Services to aid the town with their prospective new contract with Dominion Power.

“We received the proposed contract and it may as well have been in a foreign language,” Windsor Mayor Jimmy Hoggard said.

Commissioner David Overton, whose duties include overseeing Windsor’s Electric Department, said he agreed the town needed help with the contract.

“This is the direction to go, no doubt,” Overton said, referencing hiring a consultant.

Town Administrator Allen Castelloe said the electric contract was one of the biggest items to come before the board.

“This is probably one of the most important decisions this board will make in the next several years,” Castelloe said. “The people we are negotiating with do this for a living and we do a variety of things for a living, not this. We need the help of an outside consultant.”

Overton said the contract would have been fine if it were a simple price change, but with the renewal of the electricity contract, there were a lot of alterations to the current agreement.

“They want to do wholesale changes,” he said.

Mayor Hoggard said those changes could affect peak shaving and other matters and that required advice from experts.

“I know it’s early, but have we received a figure on the wholesale cost,” Commissioner Bob Brown asked.

Castelloe said they had, but the town had rejected the original figure.

“They gave us a proposal and the mayor eloquently let them know it wasn’t acceptable and that they should go back to the drawing board,” Castelloe said.

“I’m not sure it was that eloquent,” Mayor Hoggard chimed in.

Brown asked how long it would be before the contract had to be renewed and was told it would be February of 2011.

“So we don’t have to have this done before we set our budget,” he said. “That’s all I was concerned about right this minute.”

Overton made a motion to accept the contract offered by Power Services with Commissioner Collins Cooper offering a second. It passed without objection.