Newly Elected Mayor Forced to Lay Off City Workers in Uniontown

From the West Alabama Newsroom–

The newly elected mayor of Uniontown is forced to begin his tenure in office — by laying off a third of the city’s workers.

Uniontown mayor Christopher Jones says the city is bad shape financially. And that’s forced him to have to make some gut wrenching decisions — right off the bat.

“No one want to lay anyone off coming up to the holidays, but we have no choice but to take those extreme actions — but we can not afford to pay them,” Jones said.

“So we have to make those necessary cuts to get our city back going in the right direction.”

Jones says ten of the city’s thirty-one employees — have been laid off — due to a lack of revenue.

“On Friday I had to meet a payroll of over $14,000 dollars and I only had a negative $2000 and something dollars in the general fund account. I have to beg and pull all kind of strings legally to get funding in just to meet payroll.”

Jones says the city had been keeping it’s head above water — using money generated from the water department.

However, that money — now goes to the newly established Uniontown Water Works and Sewer Board.

And without that revenue flowing in — the city’s general fund account — has dried up.

“We formed the water board and everything had to be turned over to the water board and that killed all revenue coming from the water department,” said Jones.

He said the city formed the water and sewer board — in order to qualify for a multi-million dollar grant it was awarded — to fix the long-standing waste water and sewage problems — that have plagued the city for more than a decade.