Prichard retirees still out in the cold

PRICHARD, Ala. (WALA) - Six months have gone by and retired Prichard city workers are still not receiving their pension checks. Many of the retirees are unable to support themselves without the money they expected to get back after working for Prichard for many years.

It's been six months since the City of Prichard has paid it's retired city workers. For Wanda Spradlin, that missing check is starting to hurt.

"I have a lot of bills. In fact, yesterday I got the amount that my medicine has been since the first of the year and it's been $2,400," said Spradlin.

Wanda should have been receiving her pension check all along, which now totals more than $3,000 lost.

"They didn't tell us that we wouldn't, the checks would be stopped. We had no communication whatsoever. October just came and we didn't get one. So when we started investigating why our checks weren't coming, all we heard was 'ah, there's no money," Spradlin added.

Wanda went to work for Prichard in 1960. She was a crossing guard and police officer.

"I worked the crossings. I worked on a number of them. I worked Whistler and 45 mostly, but I worked just about every crossing in Prichard," said Spradlin.

She spent 25 years working in intersections near schools, helping children cross the street safely. At the present, Wanda has back problems and has to see a doctor regularly. She said she can hardly pay her medical bills.

"We have just been treated dirty. They have had no compassion on us whatsoever. They have no compassion on us where we are starving to death. It's just a situation I never thought we would be in," she said.

Wanda, along with many other city-worker retirees, are demanding answers. They want to know where the money that they paid into the fund decades ago went.

"The City of Prichard, it's not just how much we've lost, it's all this time and work we've put in for them. They are treating us like step children," Wanda said.