VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Organizers of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver say the event will meet its $1.47 billion budget and leave a healthy legacy for Canada and the province of British Columbia.
"Our objective has been to produce a balanced budget with a healthy contingency and we have delivered that plan today," Vancouver Organizing Committee chief executive officer John Furlong said Tuesday. "This is the road map for three years of hard work ahead. Our budget will stay balanced."
The Games will be staged in Vancouver and Whistler from February 12-28. Vancouver and Whistler will also host the Paralympic Winter Games from March 12-21, 2010.
The operating budget includes $524 million for construction or renovation of venues, equally funded by the governments of Canada and British Columbia.
So far, organizers have collected or received commitments for approximately $994 million of its operating budget and anticipate collecting an additional $456 million. Of the $1.47 billion in expenditures, $652 million for goods and services remains to be committed.
The Games are also carrying a budget contingency of $90 million to address any potential shortfalls in these revenues or increased expenditures.
The business plan blends the lessons from the last two Winter Games, Salt Lake in 2002 and Torino in 2006, with the expertise and knowledge of Vancouver staff and its partners, Furlong said.
"The VANOC board of directors is confident that with this plan the fiscal framework and discipline is in place to not only stage great Games but also to produce community and sport legacies that will last long into the future," organizing committee board chair Jack Poole said.
However, after the debriefing of the Torino organizing committee last year, Vancouver organizers were given a different impression. Vancouver's construction budget was too low, Torino chief executive
officer Cesare Vaciago said last August.
"Even if Vancouver already has many of the structures, I found that the Vancouver budget is ... small, a little bit too small," Vaciago said. "They cannot take one dollar away from it."
Overall, spending for the Torino Games was expected to be more than $3.35 billion.
Vancouver's plan made public Tuesday updates the planning and financial assumptions made in the bid and maps out what is required to stage the Games. The plan has been approved by VANOC board of directors, the governments of Canada and the province of British Columbia.
Both governments had to dip into the Games' contingency funds last year when organizers realized they were not going to have enough cash. Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper told Vancouver organizers there would be no more funds.