It is no secret that the City of Natchez is behind on its bookkeeping and is in the process of completing audits for two previous years’ budgets even as a new budget year is at hand, beginning Oct. 1.

Last week, City Clerk Charles Crump resigned abruptly, saying some members of the Mayor and Board of Aldermen were pushing him to complete two audits at once.

Crump also said he was displeased that some members of the board also were “micromanaging” him and his department during the budget process.

Crump admitted he was a bit tardy in getting the budget done and said having the board be involved in every aspect of the budgeting process is OK. However, Crump said, he just wished he would have known that going into the job.

In his past experience as a clerk in other cities, Crump said, board members were not as involved in the budgeting process. Crump also complained about board members allocating money for expenses even before the two-year backlog of reconciling past budgets has been completed.

“We have to do one or the other year, and they want the staff to do all the years at the same time,” Crump said. “… I was trying to work the city out of this backlog and then we are crunched for money and they are steadily obligating money. You don’t obligate money when you don’t know where you are.”

We suspect the problem with the city clerk’s office went a little of both ways between Crump and board members.  Crump being frustrated at board members not taking his advice and giving him directives and board members wanting him to speed up the process.

We are sorry Crump was not a good fit for the City of Natchez, and wish him luck in his next job.

We urge board members to demonstrate better leadership in hiring a new city clerk.

The city should hire a good, competent city clerk and stand back and let them do their job, which is, after all, a hallmark of good leadership.