NATCHEZ — The consultant hired to raise money to pay for Natchez’s 300th birthday celebration has terminated her services with the Convention and Visitor Bureau.

Jennifer Barbee and her Texas-based team were hired in May 2013 to help fundraise and find corporate sponsors for the city’s tricentennial celebration.

Interim CVB Director Creda Stewart said Wednesday that Barbee initiated an option in her contract that allowed her to terminate her services.

“We’re currently reviewing our options to see what exactly we’ll do, but we have to keep moving along,” Stewart said. “We’ve been delayed tons by a lot of this, so what we’re trying to do is just move forward.”

Barbee did not return messages Wednesday seeking comment.

Barbee provided initial fundraising projections, suggesting $1.7 million could be raised by Dec. 31. 2013, and more than $4 million by the end of 2014. Her total fundraising goal was between $5 million and $10 million.

Barbee said in May she had raised far less, approximately $200,000 to $250,000 and secured two corporate sponsors. Barbee said other funding and sponsorships were in the works. She predicted by the end of 2014, she might only have raised a total of $500,000.

The CVB had paid Barbee approximately $244,000 in May for all of her company’s services. Those charges included an $180,000 fee for the tricentennial project and another $64,000 for revamping the CVB’s website — visitnatchez.org — and creating a weddings microsite and Barbee’s travel reimbursement. A microsite is an individual web page that is part of a larger website.

Stewart said she was unsure of exact figures on how much the CVB had paid Barbee since May, but said Barbee’s website work was complete and the only termination of services dealt with the tricentennial.

Stewart said, to her knowledge, no more money would be paid to Barbee following the contract termination.

“We’re currently reviewing all the deliverables she was expected to bring in, but we’re still in the process of doing all that,” Stewart said. “At this point, we’re still trying to figure all that out.”

Mayor Butch Brown said the responsibilities of fundraising Barbee was handling would be spread out across various people in the CVB and on the Tricentennial Commission, which is made up of business and community leaders serving in a volunteer capacity.

“(Barbee) has decided to move on, and we don’t have that option,” Brown said. “We’re going to have a tricentennial, and we’re going to do what we have to do to make that happen.”

Jennifer Ogden Combs, who is the executive director of the commission, said future fundraising efforts would need to expand to all levels, corporations and organizations.

“We don’t need to just be limiting ourselves to state and local funds,” Combs said. “We’re wanting to look at national corporations or federal grants, because we’re going to get whatever we can to get these events.”

The commission received a $10,000 installment check earlier this week from Entergy, which is part of the company’s $50,000 commitment to the city for the tricentennial.

Those types of commitments, Combs said, are what the commission hopes to receive more of in the coming months.

“They saw the opportunity this offers and said they wanted to be out there as an early sponsor, so we’re trying to find more people like that,” Combs said. “A lot of folks think it’s too far out to start thinking about 2016 now, but it’s really only a year and a half away.”