Apparently, the City of Natchez has a plan to fix its budget, but it’s not explaining the plan to the public or the city employees who will lose their jobs as part of the “fix.”

Of course our illustrious leaders — or at least one or two of them — just could not keep their mouths shut, leaking the details last week. The result of the loose lips at City Hall is a horrible personnel situation that is inexcusable and embarrassing.

At least one city worker — Grants Coordinator Brett Brinegar — heard through the gossip grapevine that she was about to be fired.

Brinegar, who apparently has more guts than Mayor Jake Middleton or the board of aldermen, stepped forward and asked Middleton and City Clerk Donnie Holloway if, in fact, she was about to be fired.

They confirmed that the grapevine rumors were true.

The bumbling of this situation illustrates how truly unprofessional the city’s leadership is.

Given the city’s lackluster financial management to date and the spend-what-we-don’t-yet-have attitude, the necessity of cutting some personnel seems clear. The budget hole was simply too deep to clear with savings on paper clips and copier paper.

But having enough decency and decorum to quickly and clearly communicate with the affected employees is common sense and a business basic.

That the city leaders — using that term loosely given their collective ineptness of late — chose to cut personnel, but then simply to wait days before telling the employees is unbelievable and inexcusable — particularly in light of the communication leaks.

While Brinegar confirmed her imminent termination, other city workers have likely heard rumors similar to what Brinegar heard. Is the plan for each of them to have to come forward and ask if they still have a job?

By late Friday rumors that entire departments would be let go were widely disseminated.

Letting employees wonder for days what their fate will be borders on mental abuse.

Hopefully the city will quickly communicate the news to all affected employees; then reassure remaining employees that the cutting is over.

Once the bad news is communicated, the mayor and board of aldermen would be wise to publicly explain the logic of their actions.

For most citizens, firing the grants coordinator as a budget cut simply seems illogical on its face.

If she wasn’t performing, replace her, but common logic would indicate that someone whose position essentially pays for themselves is likely worth keeping.

Her work is bound to be worth at least two part-time aldermen, whose pay — even after their paltry 10-percent pay cut — is approximately that of the full-time grant writer.

Let’s hope there’s a good explanation for this specific cut and others that allegedly are coming down soon.

While the mayor and board of aldermen may seek to hide their reasoning by pulling the “privacy” card, that’s not applicable here.

What we’re talking about is the cutting of a specific budget line item and there should be no privacy concerns in that.

If city leaders refuse to explain their actions once all of the affected employees are informed, then perhaps voters will simply have to start marking their calendars.

In two years, voters can make wholesale changes to their government representatives when the whole lot is up for re-election. And a whole bunch of voters are already viewing that as a mandatory change.

Kevin Cooper is publisher of The Natchez Democrat. He can be reached at 601-445-3539 or kevin.cooper@natchezdemocrat.com.