The city’s proposed operating and capital budgets took another step towards approval today as the executive committee gave them the green light.

Members of the mayor’s inner circle approved the proposed $9.85 billion operating budget and the proposed $2.98 billion capital budget at the conclusion of the meeting.

Though Mayor Tory has said that he is “very optimistic” that both budgets will receive widespread support, some members of council have criticized the operating budget’s reliance on borrowing money from the capital budget in order to plug an $86 million hole created by the loss of provincial housing funding two years ago.

Speaking with reporters during a break in the executive committee meeting on Monday afternoon, Budget Chair Gary Crawford defended the measure as “prudent and practical.”

The comment came after Coun. Mike Layton drew the ire of Mayor Tory for suggesting that Torontonians are “not getting a straight answer” on the full cost of borrowing the money while questioning city staff.

“There is about 1.5 per cent interest that we would have been receiving if the money was in the account originally but in fact we will be paying interest back to ourselves so over the period of the loan, which is six years, it will event itself out,” Crawford said. “There will be no impact whatsoever.”

Though the proposed budget for 2015 is balanced, Crawford said that city staff will have to find $43 million in additional savings in 2016 in order to balance the next budget.

Last month, Tory found about $10 million in savings by asking the Toronto Police Service and the TTC to cut their budgets by $5 million each. Other savings were then realized through several other measures, including a plan to hold off on filling a number of positions in the city's planning department and the offices of the ombudsman and the integrity commissioner.

"In 2015 we were successful in finding $25 million of the $86 million but we still need to find more and the minute we finish this process we are going to begin looking at how we will deal with that," Crawford said.

City council will now consider the proposed budgets at its next meeting, scheduled for March 10 and 11.

The budget, as proposed, includes a 2.75 per cent property tax hike.

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