The Cullman County Commission voted this morning to hire a Montgomery accounting firm to independently evaluate the manner in which the City of Cullman calculates the price of water it sells to the county.

  The move comes in response to requests by members of the Governmental Utility Services Corporation of Cullman County (GUSC) and the South Cumberland Cooperative District (SCCD) that the county revisit the nuts-and-bolts application of the pricing schedule delineated by the city in its water purchase agreement with the county.

  That request came last month as part of mediation talks ordered by the Alabama Supreme Court, which instructed the utility boards and their adversaries in a lawsuit over the boards’ existence to hammer out a resolution to their nine month-old dispute without having the case tried before a court.