An Olympic price tag: Salt Lake City's tab for the 2002 Winter Games will reach nearly $2 billion

0 Comments | Insight on the News, March 4, 2002 | by Patrick Hruby

The Salt Lake City Games also will siphon about $400 million from the U.S. Treasury -- a significant increase over the $83 million in taxpayer dollars spent at Lake Placid and even more than the $193 million spent on the Atlanta Olympics. Of the federal government's share, $244 million is going toward a massive $300 million-plus security effort that nearly triples what was spent in Atlanta.

Athletes at the Salt Lake Games will be outnumbered roughly 6-to-1 by a 10,000-member security contingent consisting of state and local police, FBI and Secret Service agents and 3,400 soldiers from the National Guard. Air patrols by U.S. Air Force F-16 fighter jets and U.S. Customs helicopters and radar planes are planned.

Already the subject of a congressional report, the federal Olympics tab was scrutinized in a recent edition of Sports Illustrated, which claimed that the cost to U.S. taxpayers actually is closer to $1.5 billion. In tallying the total cost, the article included $1.1 billion in highway and transportation funds used to speed construction of a light-rail system and reconstruct a major Salt Lake City freeway prior to the Olympics.

Utah politicians and Salt Lake officials counter that both projects were already under way, making any expenditures a fait accompli. "From the government's perspective, those are projects that would have been approved anyway, based on the current transportation requirements out here," says Gillespie.

Despite the enormous cost of putting on the Games, organizers expect to break even. They also plan to leave Utah a $40 million winter-sports fund. If the organizers actually manage to pay what they owe, they'll have Romney -- a frequent critic of Olympic bloat -- to thank. Faced with a $400 million shortfall upon taking over in 1999, Romney slashed about $200 million from the previous SLOC operating budget. Among the cuts: an international youth camp that cost more than $500,000.

Following the Winter Olympics, Romney plans to deliver a series of cost-cutting recommendations to IOC President Jacques Rogge, who recently appointed a commission that will look at ways to alleviate the spiraling size and expense of the Games.

"The IOC has already begun a review process in this regard" Romney wrote in October. "And I believe [there will be] a strong focus on controlling future growth of the Olympic Games"

PATRICK HRUBY WRITES FOR Insight's SISTER DAILY, THE WASHINGTON TIMES.