Los Angeles budget brought into balance

Cost-cutting actions turned a projected $72 million shortfall into a balanced budget for the fiscal year, Los Angeles city officials said. City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana said it wasn't one thing that lead to the current budget shortfall, nor was it one thing that corrected it, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday. But the balanced budget shows "we're moving in the right direction. We could start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel here," Santana said. He warned against complacency, though, saying city officials must continually thinking about the budget and ongoing shortfalls. "The worst thing that we could do is assume that we're done," he said. The city has an ongoing budget shortfall of between $150 million and $200 million in the next fiscal year, but that's down from a possible $250 million shortfall, Santana said when submitting his budget projections in a midyear report to the mayor and City Council. He said the $72-million deficit for the current fiscal year arose from several factors, including higher gas prices, increased workers' compensation costs and additional Fire Department overtime, the Times reported. "It's not one big thing that resulted in the deficit, it's a combination of things," Santana said. Santana said the city must its austerity measures in place and urged city leaders take additional steps because the city could still experience "unforeseen expenditure pressures," the Times said. "We're down to the bone and so the next challenge is really figuring out how we're going to do business differently," he said.