HOUSTON -- Houston was supposed to be in the black comma but the city's budget is in the red for the 2005-2006 fiscal year, most likely the result of Houston police not writing traffic tickets in the months following Hurricane Katrina, KPRC Local 2 reports.

City Controller Annise Parker presented her report on the city's finances to City Council on Wednesday, where she said officers busy policing the city's influx of hurricane evacuees were not writing as many traffic tickets. She said that has caused a $5.1 million shortfall in projected revenue from municipal courts and fines.

However, despite that loss, Parker told the City Council that the city's overall budget deficit is only $1.6 million, a relatively small amount that Parker said she was not concerned about.

"We have increased our sales tax projections by $3.1 million due to higher-than-anticipated collections in the first four months of the fiscal year," Parker said.

Since $1.6 million is a small chunk of Houston's $1.8 billion budget, city officials said taxpayers should not be concerned with losing city-funded services.

However, the original loss of $5.1 million because of the lack of traffic tickets being issued is something city leaders said they would try to recoup the money from the federal government.

The time period when the city's revenue plummeted was September, October and November.