The local authority here approved a fifty-fold increase of the city's 2016 budget deficit, which will now expand from the originally planned 669,000 euros (727,049 U.S. dollars) to 34.4 million euros, local media reported.

The city council intends to spend the money on school renovation, the creation of new municipal jobs, and vacation allowances for the city council's employees.

Meanwhile, the ruling coalition of the leftist National Harmony Party and the business-oriented Honor to Serve Riga (GKR) party rejected the opposition's proposals to raise maternity benefits and wages for nursery school teachers.

Ilga Tiknuse, head of Riga city council's finance department, explained that the budget deficit could be safely increased largely because the local authority did not spend the whole amount earmarked in the city's 2015 budget.

Tiknuse also noted the municipal budget still had a reserve of 40 million euros after the latest budget amendments. The reserve has been reduced by 13 million euros from 53 million euros. Endit