FAIRHOPE, Ala. - A proposed firing of a city employee and disciplinary action against another prompted Mayor Tim Kant’s recent change in the personnel manual, he said this week.

“I wanted to make sure employee discipline was followed because apparently the last couple times it wasn’t,” Kant said Tuesday. “There’s a process in the manual, and I wanted to make sure it was followed and any proposed disciplinary action brought to my attention first.”

Kant said that his June 30 memo to city managers and supervisors, which stated that all proposed terminations, suspensions without pay and demotions require his approval first, was authorized by a recent Alabama Supreme Court decision giving mayors ultimate authority for hiring and firing city employees.

Normally, changes in the personnel manual require City Council adoption as well as the mayor’s approval, but Kant said the Supreme Court decision and the possible action against city employees required his immediate action.

“I don’t think the change in the personnel manual was properly made,” Councilman Rick Kingrea said Tuesday. “I believe such a change has to be approved by the council.”

Kant addressed the council Monday night about the repercussions of the Supreme Court decision, and the steps the city should take to respond to its decision that mayors alone, not councils, have power to hire and fired city employees.

“I’m here tonight to start this discussion,” said Kant, adding that the city attorney and the city’s employment attorney were reviewing the personnel manual and would make recommendations to the council on possible changes that needed to be made.

“The problem the mayor has is that he is under the Supreme Court decision today,” said local attorney David Whetstone, who is advising Kant about the issue.

Whetstone told the council it may take six months or more to review the personnel manual and other rules in conflict with the decision, but that the mayor “doesn’t have six months.”

The Supreme Court opinion that became final last month settled the issue of whether mayors alone have the ultimate authority to hire and fire city employees, according to several state and city staff and officials.

In earlier widely accepted interpretations, the state statute in question also allowed city councils to pass ordinances giving them authority over the hiring and firing of municipal employees.

The Fairhope council passed an ordinance in 2008 that gave a number of senior employees a right to appeal to the council if they were fired by the mayor.

That ordinance is now invalid, Kant said before Monday’s meeting.

“I would have preferred that he had spoken with us first and then make the change in the personnel manual,” Kingrea said Tuesday. “You don’t make a change and then say you wanted to discuss making a change.”

Kingrea referred to Kant’s statements Monday that he was starting a discussion with the council to begin making changes in the city’s personnel manual and ordinances.

“Until we get this resolved, all terminations will come across my desk,” Kant told the council, referring to the city’s upcoming review of the personnel manual and other local rules and laws.

The current personnel manual, as well as seperate rules regarding the police department, authorize employee discipline without the mayor’s involvement, Kant said.