SLOC budget process is good

Two thumbs up for the 2002 Winter Games' $1.45 billion budget is good news for the Salt Lake Organizing Committee and for taxpayers as well. Gov. Mike Leavitt and Mayor Deedee Corradini OK'd the document after giving it thorough scrutiny for the past month, as they should have. They needed to endorse the revenue/spending plan before it was finalized by the International Olympic Committee.

Continued oversight should be expected by SLOC as a matter of good public policy, even though it is a private entity. Everyone has a huge vested interest in making sure the mammoth event comes off according to plan and within budget.Salt Lake City has attached its name to the Games, and the state agreed to indemnify the city against any losses should bills be left unpaid by Olympic organizers. Nobody anticipates that, of course, but Leavitt and Corradini did have legitimate questions about revenue contingencies in case of shortfalls.

In response to those concerns, they received assurances that organizers would not spend or contract to spend more than 60 percent of their budget over the next year, at which time they will have commitments for the vast majority of their revenues. And SLOC agreed to maintain at least $100 million in contingency and reserve funds until Oct. 1, 1999. There also will be semi-annual reviews by the organizing committee's independent auditor.

Those are reasonable checks that will not hamper SLOC's ability to do business but that provide some safeguards for a public that has loaned $59 million in tax dollars for venue construction.

Other commitments were made to Corradini that SLOC will come up with $3 million already pledged toward a pair of ice rinks at the Steiner Aquatics Center; and that media housing will be built within walking distance of the Salt Palace.

Those are not significant concessions, but they indicate a healthy, increasing flexibility by SLOC to cooperate with government officials and forge a stronger private-public 2002 Winter Games partnership.