Federal judge releases some funds to pay employees of bankrupt

REEDS SPRING, Mo. -- Seven municipal workers in Reeds Spring received paychecks after a federal bankruptcy judge released some funds from garnishment.

The employees -- including four police officers -- were given two weeks of back pay Thursday after general operating funds were made available to officials in the southwest Missouri city.

"Thank God," City Clerk Kacee Anderson said. "I'm going to pay my bills, and that's probably what everyone's going to do."

All of the city's accounts were frozen Nov. 5 to pay a $100,000 judgment to a Kimberling City woman who said she stepped in a hole along a city sidewalk in 1998 and tore two ligaments in her ankle.

City officials took the rare step Nov. 8 of filing for protection under Chapter 9 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.

Bankruptcy Judge Arthur Federman did not release other bank accounts.