IDE :: HtmlText, Incorrect TextHeight, And Extra Space

I've developed a relatively simple calendar app in Flash that reads an XML file and displays text based on what day it is. A different bit of text displays in the same text box. Since the text is of varying lengths, I wrote a function to resize the text to be large enough or small enough to fit the box. Here's my function:

Code:
// Generic function for increasing text size to fill its container
function AutoTextResize(textElement, maxHeight):void {
textElement.autoSize = TextFieldAutoSize.LEFT;

[Code]....

It behaves as if the textHeight is LARGER than the height of the box, despite the values it outputs in the traces.