In a whirlwind meeting Tuesday, Natchez aldermen approved a new budget, agreed to sign onto a city-county recreation plan and in the process did absolutely nothing to help their credibility with taxpayers.

Call us skeptics, but we simply do not trust numbers coming from the city clerk’s office right now.

Just weeks ago the city leaders indicated the municipality was out of cash in the general fund, and the city clerk first sought to borrow $1 million to make payroll through the end of the calendar year.

Now through what we’ve described as a bit of hocus pocus magic, we’ve approved a budget that not only balances, but that projects a $2.2 million surplus. It’s as if the city suddenly found a money tree growing at Duncan Park.

Tuesday we also learned that despite having suggested each department in the city would cut its budget by 5 percent, that didn’t happen in every department. Yet, magically, the savings built anyway.

City leaders — yes, we mean aldermen and the mayor — must help make fast order of the city’s finances.

The best way we know how to do that is for them to demand a monthly financial statement is produced showing the revenues in and the expenditures going out for each city department, along with a comparison to what each department spent during the period the previous year.

We applaud the city for finally agreeing to play ball with Adams County and combine resources for a community recreation program, but we simply wish the city had cleaned up their financial mess before jumping into another project. Fortunately, it seems, the funds the city committed to recreation are either funds already being expended or community development funds currently not part of the city’s regular operations.