Every story has two sides. Actually, some stories have three — your side, their side and the truth.

Whatever the case, the back and forth between the City of Vicksburg and the Warren County Board of Supervisors is proof neither side has its story straight.

For more than a year, the two have been in talks — at times heated — about the county contracting with the city for ambulance service.

Debates have been made about the price of the service, the scope of the service and the billing of the service. At one point, the county even looked at hiring a third-party vendor to provide EMS service to the county — an idea that was widely panned and thankfully dismissed.

Most people believed the two sides had formed an amicable relationship when the county and city signed a new contract just more than a month ago, ending their arguments and agreeing to work together.

Then comes this week’s phantom bill from the city to the county for previously unbilled service calls during the last year. Apparently, the charges were discovered during an audit of the city’s service.

The $109,000 bill was received this week, and we can all understand why some supervisors are quite upset. We would be too.

The city had agreed to provide prompt billing to the county, allowing the county to pay those invoices, keeping both sides whole in the agreement.

This out-of-nowhere invoice does little to bridge an already large trust chasm between the two and only feeds discussions about future agreements with outside companies.

We understand an audit could, and often does, find irregularities, mistakes and missed items. That is why audits are so important.

But $109,000 is a large mistake. If each ambulance run is charged at $300 per run, that would mean the city failed to bill for a little more than 360 calls. Missing that many billable runs seems difficult to fathom.

The two parties — again — need to come together, talk out this issue and come to an agreement that works for both. And, the city needs to do a far better job of billing the county moving forward.

At times they might not agree, but each side needs one another and we, as residents of Warren County, need the leadership of Vicksburg and Warren County to be on the same page.