Clearly, the City of Natchez has been operating in a vacuum of financial logic.

Such a description is the only way we can comprehend how the city can be inaccurate with taxpayer money.

Last week, — in the 11th hour of city budgeting — city leaders stumbled upon the sudden reality of rising employee health insurance costs.

Natchez’s leadership, particularly the board of aldermen, seems utterly shocked that the city is facing a $229,000 increase year over year. Nearly half of the increase is tied to an ever-expanding city payroll — up by 13 people this year.

An apparent, and repeated, budget error should have highlighted the problem years ago, but apparently no one was paying attention.

The city was budgeting $222 per employee, per month for health insurance costs. The actual amount the city was paying, however, increased to $588 per month when the city moved away from a self-insured program in 2013.

That difference — $366 per month, per employee — is significant, particularly given the size of the city’s payroll.

The city has more than 200 people on the payroll meaning the annual difference between what was being budgeted and what was actually being spent was approaching $1 million.

Natchez Mayor Butch Brown seems to blame City Clerk Donnie Holloway, who admitted that he should have caught the error. But placing the blame solely on Holloway isn’t completely fair.

The city aldermen approve the budget each year. Would such a huge variance between what was budgeted and what was spent not raise an enormous red flag?

We urge city leaders to take the budget process seriously and work not from last year’s budget, but from last year’s actual spending records and immediately freeze all new expenditures until leaders get a handle on the budget and the public regains a little confidence in the process.