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≡ NO MONEY FOR METRO ≡
Bad news for 2028 Games funding for the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority, as reported during the Metro Executive Management Committee meeting on Thursday by Government Relations Senior Director Raffi Hamparian.
He explained a significant direction change in the Federal budget deliberations in Congress, which would be to the detriment of Metro:
“It appears the House of Representatives is moving in the direction of adopting a Continuing Resolution; for our purposes, that is relevant because we have a number of equities pending in the Transportation spending bill in the House, and it would appear that there will be no successful effort to try to get that adopted by the beginning of the Federal fiscal year, September 1.
“In shorthand, I would say, basically, what Congress would be doing – and this is sort of the House perspective and it hasn’t been shared by the Senate yet – it may be kicking the can down the road ‘til after the November election and dealing with what some would characterize as a bit of a mess of all these spending bills, after Election Day.
“So, that is significant. We had a number funding priorities in the Fiscal Year ‘27 bill, including $875 million for the Olympic Games and a number of other issues. And it appears, that as of this morning, the House is going to seek to kick that can down the road.”
Metro has been asking for $2 billion in Olympic and Paralympic Games support, against which the $875 million – proposed in the House version of the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development [THUD] appropriations bill – would have helped.
Madeleine Moore, the Deputy Executive Officer of Government Relations for Metro, added more bad news relative to the requests for Games funding from the State of California:
“The Governor formally signed the FY 2026-27 budget on June 29th. …
“The final budget, additionally, does not include any funding related to Metro’s $379 million transportation infrastructure ask for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games, though it does contain provisions related to the Games Route Network that will be conducted in collaboration with Caltrans.”
She added that this funding is being sought in the additional budget “trailer” bills expected in August, that make more specific directions to the broad budget bill allocations:
“This was a priority. The $379 million ask was a priority of our L.A. County delegation. They are fully engaged, fully committed; we’ve been speaking to key members, leadership and budget staff these past few days, even though it’s recess, to really hit the ground running when they return in August, with the hope that we can secure [funding].
“We’ve been very clear: we need funding this session, that this is not something they can kick the can down the road for, in order to have time to complete the projects.”
Metro’s operations staff has said that it needs money this year in order to secure rentals of equipment and land for maintenance, staging and training operations for 2028. Its agreement with the LA28 organizing committee calls for Metro to provide support services for the public during the Games period to the extent it obtains outside funding to do so.
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