As the City of Natchez prepares to create its budget for fiscal year 2018, we encourage city leaders to think about a simple premise — working together makes sense.

Hopefully, the city aldermen will consider working together with their counterparts in county government to find savings of the public’s money.

One potentially good option aldermen need to explore is how the city might pool resources with the county to create a larger, more stable self-funded health care coverage for employees.

Last year, city employees practically begged — including circulating a petition — city leaders to change the city’s insurance provider. Employees complained of poor service, lack of coverage and other worries.

Unfortunately, aldermen didn’t listen and instead left the existing plan in place.

Adams County took a different approach last year, going back to a self-funded insurance coverage with re-insurance covering major medical claims.

Further, the county hired its own nurse practitioner to handle medical issues at the Adams County Jail and to be on hand to provide free care for county employees that would otherwise be making claims at a physician’s office or the emergency room.

The plan — which like all self-funded plans has some risks — paid off for the county, as it appears to have saved more than $300,000 from what the county budgeted to spend. 

Wisely, the county is considering putting those saved funds in a rainy day fund to cover any years in which claims or high.

The additional number of employees the city would add to the county’s coverage pool may help both entities on cost and that should be fully considered before budgets are set and another costly, non-employee friendly plan is set in place for city workers.