Tuesday, the Natchez Board of Aldermen is scheduled to meet and likely follow the same playbook often used this time of year — panic.

With only a little more than one week left in September, the City of Natchez is already behind the 8-ball on what would seem a routine matter — creating a financial plan for the next fiscal year.

Officially, the city should have already adopted its budget. The state law mandates such budgets be completed by Sept. 15.

But this is Natchez, and government works at its own pace, apparently.

Last week, aldermen were — rightfully so — wrestling with the last budget projection from the City Clerk’s office.

The budget projection showed the city would have a positive amount of money at the end of the year, but unfortunately, it also showed the city’s general fund would be more than $800,000 in deficit.

That minor detail matters because the city — like many governments — doesn’t just use simple accounting in which all the money goes into a single pot. The city uses fund accounting.

The idea is fairly simple: By keeping money segregated into individual funds, theoretically, the accounting system provides greater accountability. Government leaders and constituents should be able to easily see what goes into each fund and what comes out.

But in Natchez this gets complicated by interfund loans and transfers and the city’s general practice of waiting until the 11th hour — or seconds before the clock strikes 12, to pass a budget.

Add into that seemingly annual habit that the city clerk’s office struggles to provide consistent, logical budget information and advice and it’s a recipe for disaster.

We urge city leaders to make a public commitment to passing a conservative budget this year and starting their budget work in June of next year.