Fayetteville's City Hall and new public safety complex will be getting

a new phone system for a price over 25 percent under the original budget.

Thursday night, the City Council approved spending $71,825 with PhoneWorx,

Inc. for the phone system, which will allow each department and office employee

to have a separate phone number so they can be directly contacted by residents

and businesses, officials said.

The phone system also allows each employee to have their calls automatically

forwarded to their cell phone, officials said.

The system also includes an automated attendant system for after hours operation

to access immediate information or report a repair problem 24 hours a day,

seven days a week.

If the problem is an emergency, the system will page an on-call city employee

to check the situation.

Ultimately, all the features will help the city improve its customer service,

officials said.

The bid from PhoneWorx, Inc. was more than $28,000 under the original budget

for the project. The next closest bid for the work was from Southern Business

Communications, which bid $95,354 and then Van Ran Communications, which

bid $147,420.

Money for the project will come from the city's capital projects fund.