Item - 2015.BU8.4

The Budget Committee recommends that:

1.  City Council receive for information Appendix 2 to the report (April 22, 2015) from the Deputy City Manager and Chief Financial Officer, which lists 41 completed capital projects/sub-projects to be closed resulting in  a total combined project budget savings of $34.585 million.

The purpose of this report is to provide Council with the City of Toronto Capital Variance for the year-ended December 31, 2014.  Furthermore, this report identifies the closure of an additional 41 capital projects resulting in a total combined project budget savings of $34.585 million with $24.992 million funded by recoverable debt; $9.484 million funded by Toronto Parking Authority earnings; and $0.109 funded by third party funding.  For all of 2014, the City completed and closed 368 projects resulting in savings of $71.5 million.

Capital expenditures for the twelve months ended December 31, 2014 totalled $2.698 billion or 62.8 percent of the 2014 Approved Capital Budget of $4.292 billion (see Table 1).  This spending pattern is consistent with prior years.  

For the year-ended December 31, 2014, Tax Supported Programs and Agencies reported capital expenditures of $2.065 billion representing 59 percent of their collective 2014 Approved Capital Budget of $3.500 billion. Rate Supported Programs reported capital expenditures of $632.421 million, representing 79.9 percent of their collective 2014 Approved Capital Budget of $791.946 million.

Table 1

The rate of spending in 2014 was driven largely by expropriation process delays for the acquisition of various sites, poor weather conditions, longer than planned timelines to obtain necessary approvals or required permits; delays in securing funds from cost-sharing partners; design issues and difficulty in securing necessary resources for project delivery.