If you’re worried that costs for a 2024 Olympics in Los Angeles could run wildly over budget and end up increasing taxes, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti Friday insisted there won’t be any money problems.
Promising “no surprises,” LA 2024 released a balanced budget of $5.3 billon as part of Los Angeles’ effort to host the Olympic Games. The budget is based on “realistic revenue projections” and includes a contingency of $491.9 million.
“The people of Los Angeles and the Olympic family can be assured that the budget we release today reflects accurately the cost of delivering LA 2024’s plan for a fiscally responsible Games that provides only upsides — economic, social and sporting — for our city and for the Olympic Movement,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said.
“Instead of mortgaging our futures on unknowable construction costs, our Games will capitalize responsibly on investments that are already transforming our city for the future.”
The budget plans for no new permanent venues to be built and will make use of existing sports complexes, as well as some planned by private investors.
The existing venues include an Olympic and Paralympic Village already in place at UCLA, the Long Beach Arena and Convention Center, the Honda Center in Anaheim, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the Staples Center and the Rose Bowl. The budget also makes note of billions in transportation upgrades the city and county already have planned.
The biggest cost of hosting the Games, according to the budget, is $1.1 billion for Olympic venue overlay, upgrades to existing venues, rental agreements and temporary venue construction.
The total budget exceeds a previous $4.6 billion cost estimate that also projected revenue from the Games will bring in an estimated $4.8 billion and result in a hoped for profit of about $160 million.
The private LA 2024 Bid Committee is led by Chairman Casey Wasserman, CEO Gene Sykes and Garcetti.
From day one, LA 2024’s budgetary objective has been: `no surprises.’ If L.A. is chosen to host the 2024 Games, the IOC does not have to worry about changing or evolving budgets, shifting competition venues or uncertainty about the delivery of the Games,” Wasserman said.
The budget was submitted to the accounting firm KPMG to independently evaluate it and the city will publicly file the KPMG analysis Friday as part of its “commitment to transparency during the bid process,” LA 2024 said.
LA 2024 is competing with bid committees in Paris and Budapest, Hungary to bring the Olympics to the Los Angeles area in 2024.
The budget will be discussed at the Dec. 9 meeting of the Los Angeles City Council ad hoc 2024 Olympic committee.
— City News Service