The Israel's Knesset (parliament) Finance Committee on Monday approved a NIS 246.8 million (64.6 million U.S dollars) budget for the upcoming national elections, set for January 22.

The sum is NIS 40 million (10.5 million dollars) more than that allocated for the 2009 race, which stood at NIS 206.4 million (53. 6 million dollars).

The overall budgets includes NIS 14.8 million for Central Election Committee (CEC) salaries, NIS 24.1 million (6.3 million dollars) for regional elections committee employees, and NIS 53 million (13.9 million dollars) for the local election committees, the economic daily Globes reported.

The increase is mainly due to higher salaries than in 2009, and the need to expand the elections day preparations, including opening more voting stations, training administrative personnel and covering computing equipment expenses.

The funding covers both the elections costs, as well as an extra NIS 11 million for an 11-month period in 2013, where there will be no approved state-level budget.

The elections were scheduled to take place in October 2013. However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasn't able to pass a new budget with his current coalition; his proposal included NIS 14 billion (3.66 billion dollars) in budget cuts, meant to cover a growing deficit.

The yawning budgetary chasm prompted Netanyahu to call for early elections within 100 days, the legally stipulated minimal period.

Committee chairman Moshe Gafni appealed to the CEC and its employees not to deplete the entire budget. "We're talking about a lot of public money, and an effort should be made not to reach the budget cap," Gafni said during the committee's deliberations, and urged CEC members to notify the committee of "every change in budget," including inter- departmental transfers of money.