Late-Night Session Produces Balanced--and Reduced--Budget : Simi Valley: The City Council seeks a 3.25% reduction in department expenses and defers some requests for personnel and for computer equipment.

In a late-night cost-cutting session, the Simi Valley City Council approved a balanced $26.8-million budget for the next fiscal year that actually spends about $1 million less of taxpayers’ money than this year’s budget.

“I’m really excited,” Mayor Greg Stratton said of the city’s ability to balance its budget and reduce spending. “It just takes a little extra effort,” Stratton said after Monday’s budget session stretched into early Tuesday morning.

Stratton and Councilwoman Ann Rock said city staff and department heads are largely responsible for the city’s healthy financial outlook.

“I really have to give credit to the city manager’s office. That staff is awfully, awfully good,” Rock said. “Even though the last one or two years we’ve had to draw down on our reserves, they made sure we didn’t find ourselves in the bind that other cities have.”

Simi Valley officials cite Oxnard as an example of a city with budget troubles. Oxnard faces a $2.8-million deficit next year and is considering massive personnel cuts and other measures to reduce deficit spending.

Initially, the Simi Valley City Council expected a $1.2-million shortfall for the new year. But the five-member panel worked past midnight, making last-minute cuts and adjustments.

By early Tuesday morning the City Council was asking for a 3.25% reduction in the operating costs of all departments, particularly in items such as travel and office supply expenses.

In addition, the council has deferred some requests for additional personnel and computer equipment for various departments. It also postponed some city landscaping projects.

Despite the cuts, city services will not be affected, said Laura Wylie, the city’s personnel and budget administrator.

“We did a great job,” Wylie said. “There shouldn’t be any impact on the public.”

The city’s determination to reduce its expenditures was prompted, in part, by a $4-million budget shortfall it experienced in the 1988-89 fiscal year. As a result, Wylie said, the council was forced to use some of its reserve funds to pay for long-delayed street widening and repair projects.

“The council is now trying to get the budget back to the point where we will not have to dip into our reserves to fund our expenses,” Wylie said. She said the city now has $13.1 million in reserve funds.

Even with its belt-tightening measures, the city plans to add two full-time positions and one part-time position--an assistant city attorney, a solid waste analyst and a part-time legal clerk. Collectively, the new positions will cost the city $173,450.

The city plans to spend $13,750 for 11 mobile radar units for the Police Department. City and police officials said the radar units are expected to pay for themselves by bringing in an additional $20,000 a year in traffic citations.

The largest single budget expenditure is for a new radio system for the Police Department that is estimated to cost $452,000. However, the radio system will be financed by the department’s drug forfeiture money, which now amounts to about $1 million, police officials said.

The forfeiture funds consist of money that the city has received as its share for assisting federal investigators in narcotics raids. The federal program requires that the money be used only for law enforcement purposes.