NATCHEZ — Mayor Jake Middleton said the city plans to start its budgeting process by July 1.

The city’s working budget for the 2010-2011 fiscal year was close to $13 million, he said, and it should be about the same for the 2011-2012 fiscal year.

“Gaming revenue is down,” he said. “But it probably won’t be a big jump from our last budget.”

The addition of Elevance Renewable Sciences should increase the amount of funds available, but the city probably won’t see any of that money until 2012-2013, he said.

Middleton said by then, the Roth Hill casino should be finished and bringing in more money, too.

“We’ll all be able to breathe a little easier then,” he said.

Natchez Transit System recently added two trolleys to their fleet — which currently only run on weekends but will expand as time goes on — and should further expand budgets to come.

“The trolleys will pull in a pretty good amount of income,” Middleton said. “People will buy month and day passes for them.”

One of the biggest things he said he’d like to see factored into the upcoming budget is instating an IT service for the city.

“We have no uniform way to do anything,” Middleton said. “I should be able to sit down at any computer in (City Hall) and use a certain username and password to log on.”

Currently, the city has an IT team of 10 volunteers.

“We have to work to make Natchez cutting edge,” Middleton said. “We need to look at cities of our size and see what they’re doing.”

Another chunk of the budget, Middleton said, should go toward overlaying roads.

“We did about $100,000 worth of road work this year, and that’s pretty good.

“We’ve done fantastic with our budget considering the economy.”

There’s no real way to plan a year in advance, he said.

“A budget is just a forecast,” Middleton said. “It’s what you think is going to happen, but you never really know for sure, especially in this day and age.”