Pandemic costs to leave $94M hole in City of Toronto budget by year's end, new report warns

Pandemic-related expenses will leave the City of Toronto with a $94-million budget shortfall by the end of the year, a new report to Mayor John Tory's executive committee says.

And that financial hole could "increase accordingly" if ways to stop the bleeding aren't found, chief financial officer Heather Taylor wrote in her report, which will be presented to the committee Thursday.

But Tory said he's confident the federal and provincial governments will step up to cover the shortfall, most of which — about $74 million —  is due to losses at the TTC. 

Ridership and revenues plummeted during the worst of the pandemic, Tory said.

"With respect to the re-elected government in Ottawa, they are a government that gets cities," Tory said.

"They get the fact that a big city like Toronto cannot operate on some kind of a transit system that is cut in half because of the fact that ridership has slowed down."

The report is a review of how closely spending and revenues are matching the $14-billion operating budget passed by council in February.