Staff writer Anita Debro reports for the Birmingham News. Excerpt:
The City of Irondale will spend $200 for each polygraph test given to employees and city officials in an effort to find out who leaked confidential police information.
There are about 60 people who work in the municipal complex on 20th Street South who could be asked to take the test.
Money for the tests will come from Irondale’s general fund, Mayor Allen Ramsey said Wednesday.
Ramsey said earlier this week that he would ask every employee at Irondale City Hall to submit to a polygraph test to find out who gave radio show hosts Russ and Dee Fine information about an ongoing police investigation.
Ramsey said that whoever leaked the information may have endangered the lives of those involved in the police investigation.
Ramsey has volunteered to take a lie detector test and encouraged the seven other City Council members to do the same.
City Council members Ron Bagwell and Jack Boone said Wednesday they would not take a polygraph test.
“I believe it’s a trap,” Boone said. “They are out to get somebody.”
Boone said testing so many employees is a waste of money for a city that had to lay off 30 employees last fall.