City Hall committees warn of money woes one year before World Cup
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With just over a year until kickoff, it appears the City of Toronto's World Cup money is still very much in motion.
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While councillors were told last week that spending plans for the soccer bash remain on budget, they also learned City Hall is considering ways to 'reduce scope' and Mayor Olivia Chow floated the possibility that the provincial and federal governments may not come through with their share.
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As Chow put it, the soccer situation is in 'flux.'
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The city's World Cup subcommittee on Monday elected to send its update on government funding straight to next week's City Council meeting, bypassing the powerful executive committee to give bureaucrats more time to craft a report. But Deputy Mayor Ausma Malik added the item in time for the executive committee to also discuss it the next day.
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'We have recently received some correspondence from the provincial government that has implications on our financing of this magnificent opportunity, so we are doing some negotiations,' Chow told the committee on Tuesday.
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'The cabinet has just been sworn in, the federal cabinet that is, and we don't know at this point what the new government would do,' the Mayor added. 'Hopefully, they will honour previous arrangements. We shall see. So, things are in a bit of a flux.'
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Councillors at that meeting were told that Toronto's World Cup project was still on budget. That was only a day after Malik pressed Sharon Bollenbach, executive director of the city's World Cup secretariat, about 'progress' on the 'funding gap.'
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Bollenbach, giving the FIFA subcommittee an update about the city's procurement plan, said work is being done to find 'prospects' for the champions table – private donors willing to give money to offset the cost of hosting the soccer tournament.
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Bollenbach also said city staffers are eyeing ways to reduce costs and 'perhaps reduce scope.'
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The final wording of the procurement update, which City Council will vote on this week alongside the government update, recommends councillors authorize Bollenbach and the head of procurement to negotiate with vendors 'whose initial quotations exceed targets.'
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The report Bollenbach brought to the committee on Monday shows total capital costs have grown by nearly $10 million from an estimate at the start of the year, and a contingency fund for operations has been shrunk from $30.5 million to $21 million. While it's not clear what is driving the rise in costs, the document said the pricing 'is surpassing initial estimates' after pre-construction work at BMO Field.
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