FORT WORTH’S $4.5 MILLION SUPER BOWL PREPARATION BUDGET IS LARGEST AMONG LOCAL CITIES
Source: Fort Worth League of Neighborhoods
The League’s recent review of the proposed City of Fort Worth budget identified Super Bowl expenses as a major item. Today’s Dallas Morning News Article (pasted below) on area city Super Bowl budget contributions says Fort Worth will spend $4.5 million; Arlington, the host city, will spend $2.5 million; Dallas will spend $3 million.
The Fort Worth City Council will vote on its proposed 2010-2011 budget tonight, 7:00 p.m., City Hall, 1000 Throckmorton Street.
FORT WORTH’S $4.5 MILLION SUPER BOWL PREPARATION BUDGET IS LARGEST AMONG LOCAL CITIES
07:42 AM CDT on Tuesday, September 21, 2010
By JEFF MOSIER / The Dallas Morning News (Staff writer Leigh Munsil contributed to this report)
In one of the harshest budget climates in recent years, the three largest cities in North Texas are planning to spend $10 million to help stage the 2011 Super Bowl.
Officials view the cost as a low-risk bargain, though, because most of the money will be refunded by the state or offset by taxes paid by visitors. The financial equation is even better for cities that have no money budgeted for Super Bowl expenses but will benefit from visitors’ spending.
Dallas’ chief financial officer, Jeanne Chipperfield, said it’s difficult to nail down specific numbers, but city officials want to ensure that organizers and out-of-town visitors bear the financial burden.
“We want the event paying for itself and benefiting the city,” and not the other way around, she said.
Both Dallas and Arlington expect to make money, thanks to help from a state trust fund.Irving, which also expects to receive trust fund money, is still working on its budget and isn’t releasing preliminary estimates.
In Fort Worth, city officials expect to shell out more than they’ll receive, but some of that money would have been spent anyway – just not quite so soon. That makes Cowtown’s Super Bowl budget bigger than the ones in Arlington, where the game will be played, and Dallas, where the highest-profile events will be staged. Fort Worth expects to spend about $4.5 million, compared with $3 million in Dallas and $2.5 million in Arlington.
The numbers should be viewed cautiously because they are estimates calculated far in advance for an event never held here. It’s also difficult to predict the progress of the uneven economic recovery, which has affected recent Super Bowl parties and ancillary events.
Another factor is that the Texas comptroller’s projections about Super Bowl tax revenue look only at money from out of state. Spending by a California actor or New York CEO would count, but purchases from a Houston petroleum executive or an Austin lobbyist would not.
So if the comptroller’s figures are on target, local cities stand to see more tax revenue, because they expect some business from Texans.
Dallas
Dallas officials have emphasized that the Super Bowl should not have a negative effect on the city budget, particularly at a time when city councils everywhere are fighting over whether to raise taxes and how deeply to cut services.
The city expects to spend $3 million on the Super Bowl and receive a combined $3 million from additional sales taxes and state trust fund proceeds.
The money will be spent on salaries, fuel, supplies and other basics for police, fire, code compliance, sanitation and other city departments. The city’s luxury hotels are expected to be packed, clubs will host high-priced and celebrity-studded parties, and the Dallas Convention Center will attract thousands for the NFLExperience, an interactive football “theme park.”
Most of the media and NFL executives will also be staying in Dallas.
The big winner for the city is expected to be the Convention Center. An estimated $3.3 million in extra hotel-motel and alcohol taxes generated by the Super Bowl would help pay off Convention Center debt.
Arlington
In Arlington, officials said the largest portion of the city’s $2.5 million cost is likely to come on game day, when more than 90,000 fans and thousands more staff members and journalists will make their way to Cowboys Stadium. But expenses will be spread throughout an eight-day period ending the Monday after the game.
More than three-quarters of the budget will go toward police, fire and ambulance costs. The rest will be spent on different efforts, some unique and some similar to what happens on an ordinary game day.
There will be inspections of the temporary structures and tents constructed just for the Super Bowl in the Cowboys Stadium parking lots. Locks will be added to manhole covers and fire hydrants. City staffers will also be combating “ambush” marketing near the stadium, an effort required by the NFL.
The city also has more traditional duties, such as managing traffic and keeping fans from parking on nearby residential streets.
Trey Yelverton, Arlington deputy city manager, said some expenses might not be needed. For example, he said, part of the nearly $239,000 set aside for public works and transportation is there in case of severe weather, such as an ice storm.
“We’ll have [road] salt and snowplows that will be on call,” Yelverton said. “There are some contingency items.”
Arlington’s funding is a complex mix that includes reimbursements from both the state trust fund and the local Super Bowl host committee. When those are added to the extra taxes expected to be generated, Arlington officials calculate, they should be in the black by $320,000. Again, that doesn’t count taxes on spending by Texas residents.
Fort Worth
Fort Worth has budgeted about $4.5 million in probable Super Bowl costs. Budget officer Horatio Porter said about $3 million of that would be primarily for police, fire and emergency management overtime and could be balanced out by state money and additional taxes.
Fort Worth is expected to be a major player in February. The AFCchampions will stay and practice in Fort Worth. ESPNwill set up shop and broadcast from Sundance Square. The Taste of the NFL, a star-studded food fest, will take place at the Fort Worth Convention Center.
“We’re anticipating a great deal of traffic downtown, which is obviously a great thing for the city,” Porter said. “But we need a stronger presence of officers downtown to ensure that we can manage the traffic and manage the crowds.”
He said overtime is needed to increase staffing downtown and in other areas with Super Bowl events, as well as to maintain staffing everywhere else. Porter said government officials in South Florida, where the most recent Super Bowl was played, advised Fort Worth officials not to shortchange those who will be there the other 51 weeks of the year.
Porter said some items in the city’s Super Bowl budget might not be reimbursed but are needed anyway. He said those include additional barricades, road resurfacing around downtown, the Stockyards and Texas Christian University, where the AFC team will practice, and Convention Center improvements.
Irving
In Irving, the financial picture is still hazy. Bret Star, assistant chief financial officer, said the city staff was still working on a Super Bowl budget and wasn’t ready to release figures.
Star said officials were still trying to calculate how much police and fire overtime would be needed and whether way-finding signs – identifying major attractions such as the Cowboys’
Valley Ranch headquarters – would be eligible for reimbursement.
Star said it was unlikely that would be sorted out by this week, when the City Council is scheduled to approve the new budget.
Some cities expect the Super Bowl to be all benefit and no cost.
Officials in Grand Prairie– next door to Arlington and its $1.2 billion football stadium – haven’t budgeted extra money for Super Bowl costs, though spokeswoman Amy Sprinkles said the city expects to receive an additional $70,000 in hotel-motel tax revenue from Super Bowl visitors.
“State Highway 360 and State Highway 161 will obviously see more traffic, but we will handle that in our regular workload,” Sprinkles said.
She said that Grand Prairie police also would assist with Super Bowl traffic escorts, and that the city’s SWAT team would be on standby.
Grand Prairie hasn’t been mentioned as the site of any large public Super Bowl events, but the parking lots at Verizon Theatre and Lone Star Park will be used by staff members working at the stadium on game day.
With a local emphasis on spreading the Super Bowl activities – and wealth – Grand Prairie and other suburbs will find themselves battling for an estimated $1 million in tax money missed by their bigger neighbors.
That’s a small piece of one of the world’s richest sporting events, but a welcome boost for some budgets.