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The belt-tightening plan, effective immediately, comes just months after an internal financial planning task force said in November that USC’s $158-million budget deficit required various “cost containment measures.”

Preller’s freewheeling ways or continued belt-tightening remains to be seen.

Otherwise, the franchise that seemed to be hot on the heels of the Dodgers apparently has been distracted by ownership squabbles and belt-tightening.

It was the only category to see a decline from last year’s game, reflecting belt-tightening by entertainment companies.

There was the 1997 Asian financial crisis, a period of such belt-tightening that South Koreans were ordered to donate their gold to the government and had no disposable income to spend on rides or concessions.