Torontonians will get their first look at the city's 2010 operating budget next Tuesday.
The release marks the start of the budget review process that culminates in mid-April with a vote by city council.
In 2009, the city had an $8.7 billion operating budget. It contained several recession-fighting initiatives designed to help keep people in their housing and find work.
In December, the city approved a total 10-year capital budget plan of almost $26 billion. More than 70 per cent of that total will go to transit.
The next phase in the budget process comes as one group warned earlier this week that Toronto's chronic fiscal problems stand to balloon over the course of this decade.
The Toronto Board of Trade said the city is currently staring into a $382-million hole. It predicts that annual shortfall will grow to almost $1.2 billion by 2019.
It said the principal reason for the deficit problem is that expenditures have been rising at a "significantly higher annual average rate than its revenue growth."
The study pointed a particular finger at wages, salaries and benefits, which have been growing at 6.5 per cent per year. Wages, salaries and benefits are the largest single expenditure for the city.
In addition, "aggressive" capital spending on infrastructure means that debt-servicing costs have been rising by 14.6 per cent annually. Debt servicing on transit projects has been rising by 20 per cent annually, it said.
In previous years, Toronto used its reserves to deal with shortfalls to cover shortfalls. However, the study said the city is losing its ability to do so as the reserve fund gets drawn down.
Given that higher levels of governments have their own deficit problems, the one-time transfers that came in the past aren't assured in the coming years, it said.
The Toronto Star reported Tuesday that the city wants Queen's Park to give it $200 million in that would nominally be for transit initiatives, but would be used to help close that huge gap. In 2009, the city got $238 million from the province.
Making the budget sustainable again will likely require a combination of either cutting or eliminating certain programs along with increasing property taxes and other fees, the board of trade study found.
"The problem will only get worse unless candidates are willing to 'think big' and consider new ideas for restraining spending or raising revenues," it said.
Even if the budget is "balanced" this year, a balanced budget isn't necessarily a sustainable one, the board said.
This will be the final budget of the Mayor David Miller era. He won't be running to keep his job in the Oct. 25 municipal election.
Few hard policies with respects to fixing the city's finances have been put forward by those hoping to replace him in the mayor's chair.
