NATCHEZ — Six weeks away from the start of a new fiscal year, officials are expecting to take out a tax-anticipation loan to cover expenses.

City Clerk Donnie Holloway said he is hoping to make it to the end of the fiscal year, which is Sept. 30, without taking out the loan. He said, however, he believes the city will need the loan.

“But I’m going to be honest with you, it’s running tight,” he said.

The Natchez Board of Aldermen voted earlier in the fiscal year to take out a $300,000 tax-anticipation loan in October 2012, which was paid back by a March 15 deadline.

Mayor Butch Brown said he does not have a problem taking out a tax-anticipation loan. Brown said the loan covers expenses during the city’s slow part of the year.

“We have money that’s owed to us, and it’s slow to come in,” he said.

City aldermen, however, have contended they would like to see the city make it through a fiscal year without borrowing money.

The city is currently awaiting the completion of its annual audit, which was supposed to be finished by the end of July.

The city has been unable to complete its audit, Holloway has said, because all of the city’s financial information needed for the audit was not readily available.

Holloway has said auditors from The Gillon Group, the firm the city hired to conduct the audit, needed information from one employee that was out on leave because of a family illness and another who died in February.

Officials have said they are awaiting the audit to get a better handle on the city’s finances. But Brown said he is confident the city is in good shape.

“I feel good about the city’s finances, particularly with what we’ve been able to do this year and what we have planned next year,” Brown said. “I don’t anticipate anything coming up that we can’t handle.”

Brown estimates that the tax-anticipation loan could be as little as $100,000 or as much as $300,000-$400,000, approximately 0.4-1.6 percent of the city’s total approximately $24 million budget.

In the 2007-2008 fiscal year, the city borrowed $1.3 million in tax-anticipation loan funds. In fiscal year 2008-2009, the city borrowed $500,000. The city did not take out a loan for fiscal year 2009-2010 but borrowed $375,000 for the 2010-2011 fiscal year. The city borrowed $350,000 in tax-anticipation loan funds in the 2011-2012 fiscal year.

The amount the city needs to finish the year, Brown said, will depend in part on how much revenue from sales, automobile and other taxes the city will receive in the coming weeks.