Latest news with #deficit
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
TDSB passes budget for 2025-2026 with plan to eliminate $34.4M deficit
Trustees for the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) have approved a budget for 2025-2026 that includes a plan to balance the board's books over the next two years. The plan includes a number of cost-saving measures to eliminate a $34.4 million deficit, including a pause on issuing new Chromebooks for students in the coming school year in favour of recirculating devices returned by graduating Grade 12 students, a news release from the board said. It also includes a $9.5 million spending cut in operating expenses for central departments of the board that will have "limited impact" on services. Fees will also rise for some continuing education programming, the TDSB said. At a meeting in April, trustees heard the school board was facing a $58-million deficit for 2025-2026, with staff looking at a variety of options to balance the budget. Since then, trustees have passed more than $20 million in cuts, resulting in a current deficit of $34.4 million, a spokesperson for the school board said. One of the cost-cutting options on the table was closing school pools the board doesn't lease out, which would have saved an estimated $12.8 million. However that's not happening after public outcry. Pools and aquatics instructors will continue to be available to students and community members for another year, the TDSB said in a Thursday news release. Board staff are working on privately leasing more pools while also working with the City of Toronto on the use of TDSB pools, the release says. The budget must now be submitted to the Ministry of Education by June 30 for final approval.
CBC
14 hours ago
- Business
- CBC
Deficit to be $4.3B smaller than predicted, but spending plans remain obscure: budget report
Social Sharing The Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) says the deficit will be smaller than predicted but the Liberal government's lack of clarity on fiscal planning has left Yves Giroux's office unable to determine if the government's spending plans are sustainable. The Economic and Fiscal Monitor released by Giroux's office Thursday morning says that the deficit for 2024-25 will be $46 billion — $4.3 billion lower than it had predicted during the election and $2.3 billion lower than was estimated in the fall economic statement. "The revision to our estimated deficit reflects a $5.2-billion increase in our estimate for revenues in 2024-25, somewhat offset by a $1-billion increase in our estimate for expenses," the report said. The PBO said that while it predicted the Canadian economy would only grow by 1.8 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2024 and 1.6 per cent in the first three months of the year, real gross domestic product actually grew at an annualized rate of 2.1 per cent and 2.2 per cent. The report said the improved fiscal position of the federal government can be explained by stronger than expected corporate income tax revenues and the money collected from Canada's counter-tariffs on U.S. goods. Improved growth in the first three months of the year, Giroux's office said, can be partly explained by companies rushing to buy inventory before tariffs were imposed. The PBO is predicting that real GDP growth in the second quarter of 2025 will likely remain flat, with an expected decline in exports acting as a drag on the economy. "Business investment is also expected to remain subdued due to elevated uncertainty," the report said. Fiscal sustainability During the election campaign, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced his plan to separate "operational spending" — the day-to-day running of government programs and departments — from "capital spending," which is anything that builds an asset the government holds. The Liberal platform pledged that it would cut the growth of government spending from nine to two per cent by eliminating waste, duplication and deploying technology to balance operational spending by 2028. But the PBO says the Liberal government has complicated its ability to track that fiscal anchor by not fully explaining how it will define operating and capital spending. "Hence the PBO is unable to assess whether the Government's recent fiscal policy initiatives presented in Parliament … are consistent with achieving its new fiscal objective," the report said. Because of the lack of clarity, the government's spending plans could be fiscally unsustainable, Giroux's office said. "Parliamentarians may wish to seek additional clarity regarding how the government plans to measure its fiscal anchor and how it will ensure federal finances remain sustainable.
National Post
14 hours ago
- Business
- National Post
Ottawa's fiscal watchdog says it's in the dark on federal government's fiscal targets
The parliamentary budget officer says he can't properly assess whether the federal government is on track to meet its fiscal targets because the Liberals' new budget benchmarks haven't been defined. Article content Without a spring budget, that means Ottawa's budgetary watchdog is in the dark on how recently announced plans to boost Canada's defence spending and cut income taxes will affect the government's fiscal position. Article content Article content Article content Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a plan before the spring election to split Ottawa's budget into operating and capital streams, and to balance the operating side in three years. Article content Article content Parliamentary budget officer Yves Giroux says in a new analysis that the Liberals haven't yet defined what will be included in this operating budget, so there's no way to say if the federal government is on track to meet its new fiscal targets. Article content The government's old fiscal anchors were based on keeping annual budget deficits below one per cent of GDP and keeping debt-to-GDP on a declining path over the medium term. Article content Giroux does say the federal government's deficit for the last fiscal year likely came in at $46 billion, roughly $4.3 billion lower than estimates in March, thanks in part to higher corporate tax revenues and the imposition of counter-tariffs against the United States. Article content
Yahoo
15 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
TDSB passes budget for 2025-2026 with plan to eliminate $34.4M deficit
Trustees for the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) have approved a budget for 2025-2026 that includes a plan to balance the board's books over the next two years. The plan includes a number of cost-saving measures to eliminate a $34.4 million deficit, including a pause on issuing new Chromebooks for students in the coming school year in favour of recirculating devices returned by graduating Grade 12 students, a news release from the board said. It also includes a $9.5 million spending cut in operating expenses for central departments of the board that will have "limited impact" on services. Fees will also rise for some continuing education programming, the TDSB said. At a meeting in April, trustees heard the school board was facing a $58-million deficit for 2025-2026, with staff looking at a variety of options to balance the budget. Since then, trustees have passed more than $20 million in cuts, resulting in a current deficit of $34.4 million, a spokesperson for the school board said. One of the cost-cutting options on the table was closing school pools the board doesn't lease out, which would have saved an estimated $12.8 million. However that's not happening after public outcry. Pools and aquatics instructors will continue to be available to students and community members for another year, the TDSB said in a Thursday news release. Board staff are working on privately leasing more pools while also working with the City of Toronto on the use of TDSB pools, the release says. The budget must now be submitted to the Ministry of Education by June 30 for final approval.
CBC
16 hours ago
- Business
- CBC
TDSB passes budget for 2025-2026 with plan to eliminate $34.4M deficit
Trustees for the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) have approved a budget for 2025-2026 that includes a plan to balance the board's books over the next two years. The plan includes a number of cost-saving measures to eliminate a $34.4 million deficit, including a pause on issuing new Chromebooks for students in the coming school year in favour of recirculating devices returned by graduating Grade 12 students, a news release from the board said. It also includes a $9.5 million spending cut in operating expenses for central departments of the board that will have "limited impact" on services. Fees will also rise for some continuing education programming, the TDSB said. At a meeting in April, trustees heard the school board was facing a $58-million deficit for 2025-2026, with staff looking at a variety of options to balance the budget. Since then, trustees have passed more than $20 million in cuts, resulting in a current deficit of $34.4 million, a spokesperson for the school board said. One of the cost-cutting options on the table was closing school pools the board doesn't lease out, which would have saved an estimated $12.8 million. However that's not happening after public outcry. Pools and aquatics instructors will continue to be available to students and community members for another year, the TDSB said in a Thursday news release. Board staff are working on privately leasing more pools while also working with the City of Toronto on the use of TDSB pools, the release says. The budget must now be submitted to the Ministry of Education by June 30 for final approval.
