NATCHEZ — Budget season is under way at City Hall, and Mayor Butch Brown said he is doing things a little different this year.

“From what I’ve been told in years past, the clerk basically did the budgets and sent them out to the department heads without adequate input from the department heads,” Brown said.

City Clerk Donnie Holloway said he has sat down in the past with department heads and talked about their budget requests.

This year, the department heads are drafting their budgets and sending them to the mayor’s office before they are officially submitted to the clerk’s office, Holloway said.

The department heads, Brown said, know better than anyone what their departmental budget needs are.

“We’re bringing these folks in with a budget who are hands on in their various departments and know what’s going on and what is broken and what needs to be replaced,” he said.

The budget approach Brown said he will take is breaking down the wants and needs of the departments.

“(The department heads) have to understand, and they do, the constraints on the amount of money that goes into their budget,” he said.

Brown said he believes all of the department’s budgets have been submitted, and he said he will review the budgets and present them to the aldermen during budget discussions next week.

The aldermen are scheduled to adopt a budget for the 2012-2013 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, on Sept. 11.

The current fiscal year’s budget was approved by the aldermen with $35.9 million in total revenues and $31.8 million in total expenditures.