BOSTON — The organization created to run taxpayer-funded Olympic venues will receive more money than expected from 2002 Winter Games profits — but Mitt Romney said that surplus won't come close to a rumored $80 million.
The Utah Athletic Foundation already received a $40 million endowment from the Salt Lake Organizing Committee to maintain the ski jumps and bobsled track near Park City and the speedskating oval in Kearns.
"We need more than that," said Randy Dryer, UAF board chairman. "We were always hopeful the Games would end up with a surplus."
And it appears that is the case.
Romney, SLOC's president, didn't say much to the U.S. Olympic Committee board of directors Sunday about the size of the 2002 Winter Games surplus other than to tell them it will be less than $80 million.
Still, the UAF will benefit even if the final amount winds up to be even half that.
The lion's share of any surplus — 65 percent — goes to the athletic foundation, which the board intends to keep in an endowment along with the $40 million already received. The idea is to maintain and operate the venues on interest earnings, leaving the principal untouched.
"That will help us in achieving that goal," Dryer said, adding the foundation must also continue to raise money through corporate sponsorships to ensure the venues' long-term financial viability.
State lawmakers diverted $59 million in sales tax to build the facilities, money that SLOC has repaid to the state. The UAF takes over the venues May 1.
The USOC has a 25 percent stake in SLOC's earnings, while another 10 percent goes to the International Olympic Committee.
"It is nowhere near as large as is rumored, but it is still a profit," Romney said during his farewell address to the nation's Olympic officials, who ended three days of meetings here.
But he said just how much money will be left over from the Games' $1.3 billion budget once all the bills are paid won't be announced until a Wednesday meeting of the SLOC Board of Trustees.
There was, however, some suggestion Sunday that SLOC's surplus could be around $40 million. Romney told reporters that the SLOC board required organizers to hang onto some $40 million of the $55 million in contingency funds set aside to deal with Games-time emergencies.
That fund was "hardly used," Romney said, although he declined to say how much of the contingency fund was spent. "We were fortunate," he said, "that the unexpected never happened."
Some of the contingency funds still are needed, Romney said, to cover higher-than-expected costs associated with restoring property "borrowed" for the Games from ski resorts and, in the case of the downtown medals plaza, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Organizers also need to stash some cash to deal with unresolved legal issues including, possibly, settling with former SLOC boss Tom Welch over a canceled consulting contract.
Welch, who left the organizing committee in 1997, lost the $1 million deal with SLOC as a result of the scandal surrounding Salt Lake's bid.
At least one USOC leader already knows what the final surplus is. The organization's president, Sandy Baldwin, told reporters here Saturday that the USOC's share of the surplus will be "less than $20 million." Baldwin, a member of SLOC's finance committee, declined to be more specific.
"Not today," she said after Romney's presentation. Baldwin said there are still a "whole bunch" of financial details that need to be worked out between the USOC and SLOC, including the timing of payments.
That won't be Romney's problem. Now that he's returned home to the Boston area to run for governor of Massachusetts, Romney will step down as SLOC president Wednesday. The organizing committee's chief operating officer, Fraser Bullock, is slated to take over.
Romney was hired at the height of the scandal, when no one wanted to be associated with allegations the Games were secured with more than $1 million in cash and gifts given to IOC members.
Although a budget surplus means he'll collect his $285,000 annual salary, which three years ago he said he'd accept only if the Games ended in the black, Romney said again Sunday he intends to donate all of it to various charities.
He told the USOC that American cities that want to host the Games "need a lot more understanding of what they're getting into. "Salt Lake was woefully surprised by how expensive and expansive the Games were." It didn't help that organizers of the previous Winter Games, held in 1998 in Nagano, Japan, had little information to share with SLOC. "The fact that Japan, after their Games, burned all their records, cost us dearly, both financially and in terms of mistakes made along the way," Romney said.
He and other SLOC officials were in Torino, Italy, last week to pass along what they'd learned to organizers of the 2006 Winter Games.
Romney said future Olympic organizers need to know that "hosting the Games is about service. It is not about making money for the local community. It is not about economic development.
"The rewards are enormous in terms of the memories that are established, the friendships that are reached and the contributions that one is able to make."
Contributing: Dennis Romboy
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