JACKSON, Miss. (WJTV) – In an exclusive interview with WJTV 12 News, Jackson Mayor John Horhn said he has a lot on his plate after finishing his first week in office.

Horhn credits serving more than three decades as a state senator, because he understands how he needs to address several issues facing the capital city. The mayor is working to find out how much money the city has to spend the rest of the year in addition to working on next year’s budget.

Horhn said the city has to submit the budget for 2026 on September 15. Budget negotiations have started. City agencies have informed the mayor what their requests are, and his administration will meet with the department heads about the requests before submitting the budget to the City Council.

“The previous administration had an interesting way of handling budgets. A lot of times, I’m told department heads didn’t know exactly what their budget was. And so, we’re trying to get a handle on that and get a process in place that allows us to be able to to manage each department’s budget,” Horhn said. “It sounds simple, but it’s not as easy as one might think, because we have a lot more needs than we have money. So, we’ve got to prioritize those needs and make sure we’ve got enough money to cover that.”

Horhn said Jackson’s budget is $330 million. He would like to have a rough draft of the new budget done by mid-August and work out the finer details ahead of the deadline.