The sale of the state's Olympic facilities to the Salt Lake Organizing Committee was put on hold for three months Tuesday so the issue of a $5 million reduction in the operations budget can be settled.
The $99 million deal was set to close Thursday. But last week, new SLOC President Mitt Romney revealed he was considering cutting the operations budget for the facilities by about one-third.That was unacceptable to the U.S. Olympic Committee and the winter sports organizations that are sending athletes to Salt Lake City to train for the 2002 Winter Games.
Their fear is that the $5 million reduction, part of Romney's contingency plan for dealing with shortfalls in the $1.45 billion budget, would essentially close the facilities for everything but competitions.
And that doesn't square with what the USOC believes Salt Lake City promised when it was bidding to be America's choice a decade ago for the 1998 and 2002 Winter Games.
Salt Lake City won the nomination only after contracting to build winter sports facilities that could be used to ready U.S. Olympic teams even if the Games never came.
"We have a number of agreements with Salt Lake City, and one of those agreements is that they would operate the facilities," USOC Vice President Sandy Baldwin said Tuesday. "We do feel it is critical."
The action taken Tuesday morning by Baldwin and other members of the SLOC Finance Committee would defer the closing on the sale of the facilities for up to three months.
During that time, SLOC has agreed to assume control of the facilities as if the sale had gone through. Operating costs over the three-month period are estimated at between $200,000 and $300,000.
The facilities affected are the Utah Winter Sports Park near Park City, where the ski jumps and the bobsled and luge track are located, and the speed-skating oval at the Oquirrh Park Fitness Center in Kearns.
The Utah Sports Authority, the state agency that oversees the $59 million invested by state and local taxpayers in Olympic facilities, is holding an emergency meeting Wednesday to approve the deferral.
Just last week, members of the Utah Sports Authority met to deal with the details of the sale. But that meeting was Wednesday, and the proposed budget cut was discussed in a closed session of the SLOC board Thursday.
Since then, officials from SLOC, the state and the Colorado Springs-based USOC have been scrambling to figure out what to do. They reached a final decision at a closed-door meeting held very early Tuesday morning.
The Utah Attorney General's office has issued an opinion that the sale can be delayed without further action by lawmakers. Legislative leaders were scheduled to meet on the issue Tuesday afternoon.
If and when the sale goes through, SLOC would take over the Utah Winter Sports Park and assume the state's interest in the speed-skating oval under the terms of the sales agreement approved by the Legislature five years ago.
The sales price set by lawmakers includes the repayment of the $59 million invested in the facilities by state and local taxpayers plus another $40 million for the private foundation that will run the facilities post-Games.
Over the next three months, members of the SLOC Finance Committee plan to review Romney's list of proposed budget cuts. Although he has said he's not spending the money, the cuts have yet to be approved by SLOC trustees.
Romney has identified $14 million that would be eliminated permanently from the budget, including $6 million in personnel. He also has put together an $84 million contingency plan in case revenues fall short.
The $5 million in question is part of that contingency plan.