If you heard the collective “gulp” the other day coming from the direction of Natchez City Hall, it wasn’t your imagination.

City leaders have begun to look at the upcoming budget year and have concluded that the city’s money situation is about to be tight, tighter than expected.

In short, city leaders say, sales tax revenue has declined slightly. The reason, they suppose, is that in the previous year the city received a nice “bump” in revenue from an influx of spending related to Hurricane Katrina.

That should not be a surprise to anyone.

Last year, city leaders vowed to be conservative in their spending.

Their plan was to just rubber stamp the 2006 budget and they promised to work quickly to consider the spending requests from each department and make changes as necessary. We disagreed with this approach as it allowed the budget year to begin without a solid, doable plan and it didn’t encourage good accountability.

Obviously, if the city’s cash position has suddenly become tight, we didn’t save any of the extra hurricane money into a rainy day fund.

We’ve encouraged the city to spend its money wisely and consider the long-term needs of the city, not just the short-term gratification that comes with spending all your money as if it would burn a hole in your pocket.

It may be too late to salvage the Katrina tax bonuses, but our city leaders must learn from the lesson, make quick amends and move forward as best they can.