City voters will head to the polls in less than one month to select a new mayor and vote for five of the six city alderman positions.

But ahead of the elections, we urge all of the candidates to take a simple pledge, a pledge that may help avoid some of the embarrassing financial issues of the city’s recent past.

The pledge is: I will not vote on a budget or spending matter that I do not understand or I forfeit my public salary.

That means aldermen would not vote to approve a city budget that is simply a rubber-stamped version of the prior year’s spending.

The pledge also would prohibit aldermen from accepting grant applications that require match funding that isn’t accounted for in the budget or available in the bank account.

Such an oath might prevent the hours of head scratching that aldermen have done in trying to perform the simple, but important, duty of paying the city’s bills.

Toward the end of last year, the city borrowed — either from a bank or from its own separate municipal funds — more than $1 million just to pay the bills.

Natchez Mayor Butch Brown seems to think the issue isn’t important, suggesting the city needs to be more worried about services than taking on additional debt or paying off the debt that already exists.

We disagree with that statement and urge aldermen and mayoral candidates to personally vow to provide transparency to the city’s finances — both cash flow and debt — as one of their top campaign promises.

All of the robbing Peter to pay Paul that the city has been doing needs to end, even if that means some services need to be cut in order to do so.