Fairfield City Council approves payroll in emergency meeting | News

FAIRFIELD, AL (WBRC)- Early Thursday, the Fairfield City Council feared that 150 city workers might not receive their next paycheck after an emergency meeting to approve payroll was cancelled Thursday morning.

It all started when the council failed to have at least four of the seven members attend Wednesday's meeting. Without a quorum, the council couldn't approve paying bills, including payroll for city employees.

So they called another meeting for Thursday morning, but it never started because the council failed to give 24 hours notice as required by law. 

Councilman and mayoral candidate Frederick Scott told Mayor Coachman he could still write the payroll checks because the city had the $191,000 needed to make payroll Friday.

[VIDEO: Fairfield City approves payroll in emergency meeting]

But the payroll money wasn't in the payroll account yet; it had to be transferred, which is something only the council can approve. So after a series of urgent phone calls with the Alabama League of Municipalities, the council called an emergency meeting at 1:30 p.m. and unanimously approved the transfer so city workers will indeed get their pay Friday.

"I'm delighted the council did come together to do what was necessary for the citizens, for the employees to be paid," Mayor Coachman said.

Coachman and Councilman Scott are in a runoff for the mayor's seat, and both today denied politics was playing a part in this fight. But when asked whether city employees should be worried about the same situation happening again in two weeks, they had different answers.

"It is my hopes that it will not happen. I hope we have learned from this situation. We will understand it is fair and the right thing to do," Coachman said.

"Possibly, we hope it doesn't, but we can't look into the future. If so we'll have to do what council needs to do. We're not trying to hold anybody hostage. Every worker in this city, they have families. Some have members in their family who are sick, need medication, they have bills pending, just like all of us. I don't ever wanna see a city worker go without a check," Scott said.

Copyright 2012 WBRC. All rights reserved.