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SLOC aims to vanish by year end
Trustees will meet to work out the details
By Lisa Riley Roche
Deseret News staff writer
If all goes as planned, the Salt Lake Organizing Committee will shut its doors forever by the end of the year.
Given that the 2002 Winter Games end Sunday, that may seem like an awfully long time to close the books on the $1.3 billion budget.
But organizers say it'll be an amazing financial feat if they can settle the 500 or so contracts still outstanding in the coming months.
After all, the organizing committee for the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta took more than three years to go out of business.
Here, there will still be revenues to collect, including around $100 million from sponsors, and bills to pay through 2005.
Just how all that will be handled, however, is yet to be decided. The SLOC Board of Trustees is set to meet this spring to work out the details.
"There are a lot of loose ends," Bob Garff, chairman of the SLOC board, said. "It's a long ways from being over for those of us in the trenches."
Long after the Games, SLOC must hand over a total of $40 million to the state for the use of the University of Utah's student housing and Rice-Eccles Stadium.
The $8 million owed for the stadium, site of the Games' opening and closing ceremonies, isn't due until January 2003. And the $32 million for the Fort Douglas housing doesn't have to be paid until May 2005.
Other debts get paid sooner. NBC still owes two payments of $114.5 million each to the organizing committee, due on Feb. 26 and early March.
That money will be go into a special account to pay back the $59 million state and local taxpayers invested in Olympic facilities plus establish a $40 million endowment to keep them running.
It would also have to be used to pay off SLOC's line of credit with sponsor Bank of America — if organizers end up having to borrow any money.
So far, they owe zero to the bank and they haven't had to tap their $55 million contingency fund to deal with unexpected weather or other problems.
As of April 30, SLOC will no longer own the state-built ski jumps and bobsled, luge and skeleton track near Park City or the speedskating oval in Kearns.
Both will be turned over to the Utah Athletic Foundation, an organization created by the state Legislature. The foundation will also control the $40 million endowment.
In May, SLOC expects to sell its remaining assets from its West Valley City warehouse. By the end of June, only about 40 people should still be on the payroll. By September, the staff drops to 10.
That's compared with 1,500 full-time and 4,000 part-time employees working through the Games and the Paralympics for disabled athletes that follow.
Under SLOC's retention package, most employees hired before fall 2001 qualify for a minimum of six weeks' pay and, the case of senior staff, up to one year of salary.
E-MAIL: lisa@desnews.com
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February 21, 2002
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