NATCHEZ — City officials are expected to meet today to discuss a possible plan to reinvent how the city handles its engineering needs.

City Engineer and Natchez Water Works Superintendent David Gardner said he is proposing a plan to the board of aldermen to phase himself out as city engineer. The plan would include the city no longer using Water Works for engineering services.

The city currently contracts with Water Works for those services, and the Water Works engineering staff acts as the city’s de facto engineering department.

The city and Water Works have apparently been operating on a month-to-month basis since the interlocal agreement between the two entities expired this summer and until new terms are decided.

Water Works is a city entity but is governed by a board of commissioners appointed by the city.

Gardner said he has been wanting to meet with the board of aldermen for quite some time to discuss the possibility of creating a new engineering department, as the city had in the past.

The city and Water Works both have overwhelming engineering needs, Gardner said.

“Right now, Water Works has a lot of engineering needs we’ve put off because we’ve been spending about 95 percent of our time on city projects,” he said.

The city currently pays Water Works for engineering services, and Water Works pays the city for administrative fees. What exactly each entity pays and services they receive in that agreement has been a topic of debate, most recently between Gardner and Ward 6 Alderman Dan Dillard at Tuesday’s board of aldermen meeting.

Gardner said he believes a move back to the city having its own engineering department has been needed for a while.

Gardner was hired as city engineer in 1993 to lead the city’s engineering department. In 2005, under former mayor Phillip West’s administration, Gardner said he resigned his position to become superintendent of Water Works.

“The city was then looking for a new city engineer … and came (and) ask me if I would continue to do city engineering, if I would do both jobs, so I said ‘OK,’” Gardner said.

The city’s engineering staff then resigned, Gardner said, and was rehired as Water Works employees and moved out of City Hall to Water Works offices on North Shields Lane.

The city has since contracted with Water Works, and Gardner said it worked well in the past.

“But the problem as of late has been that I guess the city and the engineering department has been so successful in getting funds and creating projects that we’ve kind of overwhelmed ourselves,” Gardner said.

Gardner suggests that the city hire an engineering staff of three or four people, perhaps an engineer, draftsman and secretary soon. Water Works’ engineering staff can train the employees, Gardner said, to make for a smooth transition.

“I’ve got 31 years in, and I’m not going to be around forever,” he said. “I think we need to go ahead and start a transition to phase myself out and phase in some younger engineering staff.”

Mayor Butch Brown said Gardner’s proposal will likely prompt lengthy discussions about how best to handle the city’s arrangement with Water Works for engineering and the future of both Water Works and the engineering department.

Talks of privatizing Water Works have been going on for years, Brown said, and some board members may favor that option. Brown said there are also strong feelings on the board of aldermen that the city doesn’t need two separate engineering staffs, one for Water Works and the city.

“That’s something that has to be thrashed out and discussed,” he said. “This is all new, and it’s going to lead to a lot of discussion.”

Gardner said because of the workload overwhelming his staff, something has to give.

“We’re at a crossroads,” he said. “Either (Water Works) is going to have to split off (from city engineering), or we’re going to have to hire more people. We can’t continue like it is. It’s just too overwhelming.”