NATCHEZ — On Wednesday the Adams County Board of Supervisors began a tedious task — developing a county budget.

Board President Henry Watts said Wednesday’s meeting was only the first of many to plan the county’s future budget year.

The county’s financial year is Oct. 1 to Sept. 30.

“It’s a long process,” he said.

Watts said the board’s main objective is to find areas where savings can be had.

“We want to literally try to take each line item and see what we can do to cut excess spending,” he said.

And while Watts stressed a need for savings, supervisor Darryl Grennell stressed a need for cautious trimming of the budget.

“It can’t just be bare bones,” he said.

While Grennell also expressed a desire to have an efficient budget, he said an ideal budget must have balance.

“We have to be realistic,” he said. “There are always unexpected things that come up and we have to be ready for that.”

So with cautious trimming in mind the board has been busy.

Watts said between $70,000 and $80,000 in spending has been eliminated from approximately 15 departments.

And that’s after just two meetings.

However, on Friday Watts did not outline what departments had received specific cuts.

“We’re looking for obvious things to cut,” he said. “Any areas of unnecessary spending.”

While cuts will benefit the future budget, the current budget is facing a deficit, Watts said.

As of Friday, Watts projected the current deficit to be approximately $622,000.

In the current budget year, the county is operating with a budget of approximately $22.1 million, with two months left in the budget year approximately $22.8 million has been spent.

Watts said upon preliminary examination of the budget he was uncertain where the deficit had come from.

“I don’t like what I’m seeing,” he said.

However the county’s tax assessor, Reynolds Atkins, appeared before the board on Wednesday with a piece of good news.

Atkins reported a projected growth of approximately $250,000 in taxes for the coming budget year.

Atkins attributed the tax boost to new home construction, two new hotels and what he called “natural growth.”

Watts said while he was pleased with the higher tax revenue, he and the board are still committed to cutting waste.

Watts said he has given board attorney Bobby Cox a list of approximately 20 groups that receive annual appropriations, basically donations, from the county to see which can be eliminated.

Watts said he gave the list to Cox so that Cox could research the county’s legal ability to donate and determine which groups could rightfully collect donations.

Watts did not say what groups were on the list nor how much spending they accounted for.

But groups that don’t meet the legal donation requirements will be eliminated from funding, Watts said.

Watts also said requests for pay raises and requests for travel expenses will be considered last in the budget meetings.

And if all the budget cutting seems drastic, Watts said he’s working on a personal goal.

“I’d literally like to try to lower taxes this year,” he said.