Small Deficit Projected in New Simi Spending Plan : Budgets: Officials blame $581,000 shortfall in part on failure to sell two properties. City departments are being asked to cut expenditures by 10% to get out of the red.

A preliminary 1995-96 budget for Simi Valley shows a small deficit between revenues and expenditures, but city leaders said that over the next few weeks, they will easily be able to close that gap and balance the books.

This year’s budget of $29.4 million is about $581,000 in the red, said Ken Schecter, the city’s budget director.

The city was unable to sell two parcels of land it owns in Wood Ranch as planned and that, in large part, led to the deficit, according to Schecter’s preliminary budget report.

In the past, the city has easily cleared up projected deficits of $1 million or more, Mayor Greg Stratton said, and he predicted that this budget process will be relatively painless.

“From our perspective, we’re in a very good situation,” he said. “Basically, we have been keeping costs down. We’ve had a tight rein on hiring and we’ve squeezed more work out of our employees. So it will be relatively easy to balance the budget this year.”

Simi Valley’s projected budget has grown by about 7% over last year’s expenditures of roughly $28 million.

This year, the Police Department will continue to receive a large share of city funds with about $12 million budgeted for services; the city’s public works agency will receive about $9 million.

Just which of the city’s eight departments will have cuts will be determined at four budget meetings scheduled in June.

Each department has already submitted proposals for how it will cut 10% from its budget allocation, Schecter said.

The projected deficit could easily be eliminated with small, across-the-board cuts in each department, he said, but city officials want to look at each department separately and set priorities for cutting during the budget meetings.

For example, some of the cuts proposed in the city administration budget include ending the city’s contribution to a legislative consultant service and lobbying in Sacramento on behalf of the city and the sanitation department, which would save about $50,000 a year.

Other proposed cuts include elimination of about $47,000 paid to the Chamber of Commerce for its visitor information service and about $9,000 to send City Council members to the National League of Cities conference in Washington.

An informal public workshop on the budget is planned for 4 p.m. Thursday at City Hall.