L.A. Has Spent $27 Million on Its 'No-Cost' Olympics, the Controller Says

Controller Kenneth Mejia's count includes $13 million for LAPD vehicles, and his office says the real figure is likely higher.

Los Angeles has spent about $27 million getting ready for an Olympics that was supposed to cost the city nothing, City Controller Kenneth Mejia found.

LAist first reported the tally on Oct. 1, laying out where the money has gone with the 2028 Games less than two years off. Mejia's office built the number by pulling every expense the city's accounting system tags as Olympics spending. It also says the count probably runs low, because it leaves out LAPD costs beyond a single vehicle order.

That vehicle order is the biggest piece. It's $13 million in financing for police cars.

The other $14 million is spread across city departments, and most of it is payroll. More than $11 million went to pay workers in the City Administrative Office, Public Works and the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, among others, according to the controller's figures.

Mejia didn't buy the city's pitch. "The city's trying to make it a no-cost Olympics, right? But we all know that's not true," he told LAist, adding that the city is speeding up a lot of spending to get ready.

Two smaller items in his tally raise the most questions. The mayor's office has logged around $460,000 as "international affairs" spending. A spokesperson for Mayor Karen Bass didn't answer LAist's emailed questions about what that money covered.

The other is more than $3.2 million for Universal Play, a Recreation and Parks program. Rose Watson, a department spokesperson, told LAist it was the forerunner of PlayLA, the youth sports program that LA28, the private committee organizing the Games, has put $160 million behind.

So the private committee is paying for the sequel, but the city's $3.2 million for the original isn't coming back. Watson told LAist the city won't be reimbursed for staffing and running Universal Play.

That one's on the city.

Paul Krekorian, the former City Council president who now runs the city's office on major events, pushed back in an emailed statement. He said most of the projects on the controller's list were "key infrastructure improvements that Mayor Bass would deliver with or without the Games" — work the city would be doing anyway.

Krekorian also said LA28 will pay the city back when it asks for services beyond what he called "normal and customary" ones. Where that line falls decides how much of the bill stays with Los Angeles taxpayers. None of the spending described so far has been identified as falling on the reimbursable side.

Two departments with Olympics charges, the Bureau of Street Services and LADOT, didn't respond to LAist's questions before its deadline.

Mejia says his office will keep tracking the city money going to the Games and where it lands, which means the $27 million is a starting count, not a final one.

Source: laist.com, retrieved October 1, 2026.