NATCHEZ &8212; The City of Natchez spent more than $117,000 to clean up Natchez after Hurricane Katrina &8212; and now it wants as much of that money back as possible.

Eric Smith, director of administration for public works, said the city will ask the Federal Emergency Management Agency to reimburse it for $117,117 worth of overtime, equipment and the like used to clean up the city after Hurricane Katrina.

At Tuesday&8217;s aldermen meeting Ronnie Ivey, public works&8217; director of operations, told the board that as of noon Tuesday, all hurricane-related debris had been picked up. The department&8217;s next priority is catch up with its normal grass-cutting schedule and with the cleaning up of overgrown properties &8212; a backlog of 52 properties so far.

Also Tuesday, aldermen recognized Ivey as employee of the month and voted to:

4Amend guidelines for the city&8217;s housing down payment assistance program to state that any financial institution can be used, not just Britton & Koontz First National Bank.

4Set Halloween inside city limits for Saturday instead of Monday.

4Abandon a portion of Dunleith Street.