Aldermen have approved a new travel policy for city employees in an effort to restrain expenses.
“We’re not here to go on vacations on the city’s dime,” Natchez Mayor Dan Gibson said Tuesday as he proposed the policy for the Board of Aldermen.
City employees will be required to submit their travel requests in writing with justifications for the trip and estimated expenses. “We just need to be more careful … (and) make sure we have more documentation,” Gibson said.
Aldermen ratified the mayor’s travel policy in a 4-2 vote. Valencia Hall, Sarah Carter Smith, Ben Davis and Curtis Moroney approved it; Billie Joe Frazier and Felicia Bridgewater Irving voted against it.
The board on Tuesday approved Natchez Senior Citizens Multipurpose Center Director Carla Monroe’s request to travel to Chicago next week to attend a conference. She said the National Adult Day Care Association’s meeting will provide information on how to cope with budget cuts being imposed by the federal government since President Trump took office.
Monroe said “major cuts are coming down” from Washington and “we could feel the pressure from it…. There are so many changes coming down. They’re coming down constantly.”
Smith was the lone dissenting vote against Monroe’s out-of-state trip. She and Gibson said to try relying more on in-state conferences for such informational meetings.
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