(AP) — Nine former employees of the southwest Missouri city of Bolivar are claiming age bias in a lawsuit.

The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Springfield. It claims the city violated the Age Discrimination in Employment Act by pushing out the employees who were between ages 44 and 65, and replacing them with workers younger than 40.

The complaint says 13 employees were fired or coerced to resign on or about April 13, 2012, and 10 of those employees were older than 40.

The complaint accuses Mayor John Best and City Clerk Kimberly Strader of saying that the city “could not continue to afford to pay employees age 55 and older.”

City Administrator Darin Chappell said he hadn’t seen the lawsuit.