NATCHEZ — Steadily climbing fuel prices have left many adjusting their monthly budgets to pay for gasoline and diesel, but officials with Adams County’s governments say it shouldn’t affect them.

But that doesn’t mean they aren’t watching the price at the pump.

“Your payroll, your lease-purchase payments, you know what those are going to be, but nothing is going to be constant when you are budgeting items like fuel or gasoline,” Adams County Administrator Joe Murray said.

“You have no idea what the price of fuel is going to do or the fluctuation of the price of gas, so you are just going to make an educated guess — you hope that the prices don’t skyrocket, and if they do, you start pinching in other areas.”

Both Murray and Natchez City Clerk Donnie Holloway said the biggest consumers of fuel are law enforcement agencies.

The Natchez Police Department has $125,000 budgeted for fuel, and has to date spent $48,000, Holloway said.

The city has six months left in its fiscal year, and even if gas prices go exceptionally high, the police still have 61 percent of their fuel budget left.

“If they get close to their budget, what we do and what has been done in the past they will patrol, and then every hour take about 10 minutes and just stop and turn the car off and just be sitting instead of running the engine all the time,” Holloway said.

Murray said the sheriff’s office has $160,000 budgeted for fuel, and has expended $71,850 of those funds.

The county road department has spent 51 percent of its $150,000 fuel budget, which was reduced from last year’s $165,000, Murray said.

“Being 1 percent over what we are supposed to be at, I am not really worried,” he said.

The road department had some bills roll over from last fiscal year, Murray said, and that is part of why their fuel budget is where it currently sits.

Another thing to consider is the fact that the county bought several new vehicles for the road department this year, which will ultimately result in some fuel savings, Murray said.

“Some of those old vehicles with more than 300,000 miles on them weren’t getting 10 miles to a gallon,” he said. “These newer vehicles are made to be more fuel efficient. It is more stable and just runs better.”

Holloway said the city fire department has $30,000 budgeted for fuel, of which it has used $9,000 to date. The inspection department has $20,000 budgeted for fuel, and has used $7,000.

The city sanitation and streets department has $65,000 in its fuel budget, and to date has spent $22,440.

“It looks like we did do a good job anticipating gas prices going up,” Holloway said.

Both Murray and Holloway said that if the fuel budget for a given department becomes stressed, the city or county can make a budget amendment from within the department’s budget to accommodate it.