FERRIDAY — When the board of aldermen met Monday for Ferriday’s budget hearing, they forgot to do one thing — adopt the budget.

Upon review of the Monday minutes, city officials realized their omission and called a special meeting Wednesday afternoon to rectify the problem.

The budget voted on Wednesday is exactly the same document the council reviewed Monday night, Mayor Glen McGlothin said.

“It’s still a $2.5 million budget,” he said. “I wish we had a $2.8 or $2.9 million budget, but we don’t.”

Before the board voted to adopt the budget, Alderman Elijah “Steppers” Banks proposed the town add $64,000 to the budget for the payment of the legal fees to late mayor Sammy Davis Jr’s estate.

Davis was convicted of malfeasance in office in 1990, but the conviction was later overturned.

A recent opinion from the attorney general’s office stated that, since the conviction was overturned, the town could pay Davis’ legal fees, but that the town is not obligated to do so.

McGlothin responded that the payment couldn’t be added to the budget because it hadn’t yet been adopted, but if the aldermen wanted to they could amend the budget at a later date to include the payments.

“With the bills we are getting, I don’t know where you are going to get $64,000 from,” McGlothin said.

The mayor said he believes it is the state’s responsibility to pay the fees since it was the state that prosecuted Davis.

“For some reason the state doesn’t want to take responsibility for what they did,” he said.

Alderman Johnnie Brown reminded the board that the finance committee is already scheduled to determine if and how the town will be able to pay the fees, and that the item is already on the agenda for next month’s meeting.

When it came to a vote, the budget was passed unanimously, with Brown making the motion to pass it and Alderman Jerome Harris seconding the motion.