VIRGINIA BEACH — The city’s Department of Emergency Medical Services paid more than $20,000 over eight years for TV service that should have been free.
Cox Communications provides basic cable to all government buildings under its franchise agreement with the city, but EMS opened its own account anyway in October 2008, according to an inter-office memo released Monday. The department didn’t realize the mistake until it recently tried to upgrade its cable box, the memo said.
The charges totaled $20,250 over 90 months. The city is now asking for a refund.
“While we do acknowledge that EMS made an error in opening a separate account for cable services, the Office of the City Auditor is respectfully requesting that Cox Communications refund the City directly for the cable charges within the past 3 fiscal years amounting to $7,651.40,” City Auditor Lyndon Remias wrote in the memo.
Cox Spokeswoman Emma Inman said by email the cable provider will reimburse the city for the erroneous payments.
The memo comes about three weeks after it was discovered the city had paid the electricity bills for a building for 20 years after vacating it. In that case, the city mistakenly paid more than $150,000 over two decades and also asked for a refund. Remias said by email Monday the city has reached a settlement with the parties involved and will be refunded five years worth of payments.
That comes to nearly $36,000 of the $150,o00.
[pdf-embedder url=”https://wydaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/9.EMSCoxCableAccount.pdf”]
