Friday
Oct282011
"Taxpayers Left To Pay U.S Open Tab?"
Delia Gonçalves of WUSA TV reports on Montgomery County wanting more money from the USGA for unanticipated overtime pay from this year's U.S. Open at Congressional.
The overall cost of Police and Fire overtime was $747,560 but the US Golf Association only reimbursed the county 10% leaving a balance of $678,265.
"I thought it was a fair deal, was it the best deal? We'll never know the answer to that," said the county's Chief Administrative Officer Tom Street.
"Other jurisdictions (who held prior U.S. Opens) had a better percentage," said Committee Chair Phil Andrews, "that's a whole lot of money and we're in a tough economic time. We need to get a better reimbursement rate because that money could have gone to some valuable programs."
Friday, October 28, 2011 at 09:28 PM
Reader Comments (27)
It's typical government mis-management. How is it possible to under estimate the need for police when it's a well known 1 week event, during the day?
why didnt they tell the usga to pound sand on a $69,000 reimbursement rate?
These government people love to collect it but when they need to pay it out - blame everyone else.
I am guessing their management can't retire until age 50 1/2 now that all these extra expenses were discovered.
Aside from traffic cops, how many cops do these events really need? Has certain people's paranoia about security been spreading through the playing population like wildfire? Nobody is out to get these players -- by the argument of many here, they have only heard of two of them. Crowd control can't be that labour intensive -- what are all these volunteer marshallls marshallong? A few cops at the gate, at the scoring tent, and that should be it.
The next venues need to get their terms straight before the fact, though. Whining after the fact is so demeaning.
So, I think the Aussie's could easily figure out if they got their money's worth. Now, the flaw in my argument is, I don't know where the extra dollars in tickets sales went. Did they go back to the govt to defray the appearance fee? I don't know. But in the case of Tiger, assessing his impact is a reasonably simple exercise.
And KCMG, to answer your question directly, the govt ponying up an appearance fee says absolutely nothing about Tiger Woods.
However, you could probably draw a lot of conclusions about the govt employees involved and their decision making abilities, if you chose to.
747K for a 7 day event (and the first 3 days are very light) is 106K a day. Say there were 250 police/fireman on overtime, that works out to $426 a day per employee in overtime.
I was out there and in my opinion if even 50 police/firemen were there the first few practice days I'd be suprised.
Maybe the local police pull in $150-200 an hour in overtime?
You are incorrect in your analysis. The listake is that you believe that a number of police personnel can be derived based solely upon those you saw. The reality is that there is a significant police & fire presence in the majority of areas that the USGA uses for the event and that you never even went near. For example, did you go to every parking lot and notice that there were officers at each round the clock? What about the out areas where the major networks and media keep equipment? Then there are the clubhouse player areas and player parking and special traffic control througghout the entire area.
On the other hand, the USGA is being attacked for something that was AGREED TO by the city & state 7+ years ago! They based all of their revenue stream mark-ups based upon what they hoped they would get to cover the costs as they believed should. Among these costs are the cost of every other USGA event as the Open is the ONLY USGA event that makes money for the organization.
The time for the citry and state to have gotten more money was during the original contract negotiations. They are the ones who agreed to accept what they signed for...
In my mind I thought "that's a good looking clubhouse but who knew, I was never able to get anywhere near it". Now I know how cattle going to market feel, being herded through the chutes and all.
And security was absurd. You want to bring in an empty 8oz. water bottle? No sir. What, lady, you want to bring in a purse? No ma'am, ain't happening.
Ever been to a NASCAR race? Bring your wagon and load it up. As long as the container isn't glass you can bring all the beer and chicken you can carry.
It's like the Tour expects terrorism....Donny Smithern just ain't on the evil doer's hit list.
Just because having a circus freak at events like the FRYS supposedly increased ticket sales etc, doesn't mean taxpayers should be ponying up for appearance fees for circus freaks - in Australia or anywhere else.
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