taxpayer

Los Angeles officials have reached a tentative agreement with organizers of the 2028 Olympic Games laying out the process for reimbursing the city for potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in public services.

The agreement, which still needs approval from Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council, would require the privately run Olympic organizing committee LA28 to provide the city with funding in advance to cover services that are ineligible for reimbursement from the federal government, such as traffic control and trash pickup.

The two parties would take a somewhat different approach for police protection at high-security venues. Under the proposed arrangement, the city would seek reimbursement from the federal government for security costs at those locations, said City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo, the city’s top negotiator.

If the federal government does not provide full reimbursement for those security costs, the city would seek to tap LA28’s contingency funds to cover the difference, Szabo said.

“This deal ensures the 2028 Games will have the City services needed to be safe and successful, while protecting the taxpayers from footing the bill,” he said in a statement.

Paul Krekorian, executive director for Bass’ Office of Major Events, praised the agreement.

“Mayor Bass’ priority is that the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games be fiscally responsible, protect taxpayers, and benefit Angelenos for decades to come,” he said. “This agreement helps deliver that commitment.”

Negotiations between the city and LA28 have played out behind closed doors over the last year, even as critics have grown increasingly vocal about the potential for taxpayers to be saddled with huge payouts if the Games fail to generate a profit. If organizers experience significant losses, the city would be on the hook for the first $270 million and possibly more after that.

Szabo acknowledged that under that scenario, the city would be far less likely to recoup all of its security costs if the federal government failed to provide full reimbursement.

Under an agreement finalized in 2021, the organizing committee must reimburse the city for any services that go beyond what would be provided on a normal day at a variety of locations, including parts of downtown L.A., Exposition Park, Venice and elsewhere.

President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” included $1 billion for security, planning and other costs associated with the Olympics. Nevertheless, some elected officials have voiced fears that money might not materialize once the Games are over, or that the city’s security expenses could exceed that amount.

The tentative deal, known as an Enhanced City Resources Master Agreement, goes before the council’s ad hoc committee on the Olympic Games on Tuesday, then to the full council.

Even with the agreement, many of the details surrounding taxpayer services during the Olympics and Paralympics will remain unresolved for at least a year.

The two sides still have to finalize agreements spelling out the services that will be provided at each venue by July 2027. They also must agree on the cost of those services by Oct. 31 of the same year.

According to a summary of the agreement released by the city Friday, Los Angeles World Airports, the Port of Los Angeles and the Department of Water and Power would need to enter into their own service agreements with LA28.

LA28 and the city were supposed to have a tentative agreement in place last fall. The negotiations dragged out for an additional nine months, in large part because of the “inherent complexity of the 2028 Games,” Szabo said in a memo he co-wrote with Sharon Tso, the city’s chief legislative analyst.

Under the terms of the 2021 agreement, LA28 must create a $270-million contingency fund that can be distributed as a surplus if the Games make money, or be used to cover any losses in the event of a shortfall.

The proposal unveiled Friday calls for the five-year-old agreement to be amended to ensure that those contingency funds can be used to cover the city’s costs in the event that other revenue is not enough to pay for certain city services provided during the Games.

The money from that contingency fund would be distributed to the city only after LA28 covers its own costs, according to the city’s summary.

If LA28 does make money, it would not be allowed to distribute its surplus funds to any other organization until after it has covered its financial obligations to the city, according to the tentative agreement.

Jacie Prieto Lopez, LA28’s vice president of communications and public affairs, said in a statement that her organization is pleased to forward the agreement to the council for consideration.

“We proudly stand behind this agreement which delivers on our commitment to execute a safe, secure, and fiscally responsible Games that benefits Los Angeles for decades to come,” she said.

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic leaders of the California Legislature plan to approve a proposed constitutional amendment this week that would ask voters to give them more flexibility over state spending and allow them to save money that could otherwise go back to taxpayers.

The proposal seeks to exempt deposits into state savings accounts from a spending limit that voters adopted through a series of ballot measures dating back to the late 1970s and to increase the share of tax revenue that can be put into the rainy day fund.

“Putting money aside to protect ourselves from future uncertainties isn’t just good government; it’s common sense,” Newsom said in a statement. “California is strong and resilient, but we’re not immune to economic headwinds. At a time when our essential services are under pressure, we have a responsibility to safeguard the programs and investments that Californians rely on.”

Assembly Constitutional Amendment 20, which Democrats are calling the “Save for California’s Future Act,” could receive push back from taxpayer advocates.

Under an existing state appropriations restraint, also known as the Gann limit, lawmakers cannot spend more than an amount determined by a formula that takes into consideration annual tax proceeds and changes to the population and cost of living. Tax revenue above the limit must be divided between schools and refunds to taxpayers.

With few exceptions, the limit applies to most appropriations of tax revenue, including money that lawmakers tuck away into the rainy day fund and other reserves. California voters have also capped the amount of money lawmakers can set aside in the rainy day fund to 10% of general fund proceeds in a given year.

Since taking office, Newsom has argued that it doesn’t make sense for savings to count as spending under state law.

State budget revenue is subject to dramatic swings from year to year based on stock market activity. The law, Newsom has said, prevents the state from saving more money in good years to stave off cuts to programs in bad years.

The proposed changes would exempt deposits into the rainy day fund and a short term reserve, called the “Projected Surplus Temporary Holding Account,” from the state appropriations limit. The cap on the rainy day fund would grow from 10% of general fund tax revenue to 20%.

“Californians live by a simple, bipartisan truth: set money aside when times are good so you’re ready when they’re not,” Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) said in a statement. “The Save For California’s Future Act is what responsible leadership looks like — and future taxpayers will thank us for it.”

The measure could incentivize Democrats to save more money because funds tucked away in the rainy day fund would no longer be considered expenditures counted toward the spending limit. By allowing lawmakers to set aside more money that is not subjected to state spending limits, it could also allow them to hold onto money that would be returned to taxpayers under current law.

The measure is slated for a vote Thursday. If approved by two-thirds of lawmakers, voters will consider the proposal on the November ballot.

WASHINGTON — A Treasury inspector general report raises concerns about Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s ability to safeguard taxpayer information after ICE and the Internal Revenue Service agreed in 2025 to share taxpayer data for the purpose of immigration investigations.

The recently released report provides the first official accounting of the scale of the IRS-ICE information transfer and documents security concerns surrounding an arrangement that has been the subject of multiple lawsuits and significant controversy inside both agencies.

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found that the 2025 data-sharing agreement between ICE and the Treasury Department — which allowed ICE to submit names and addresses of immigrants in the U.S. illegally to the IRS for cross-verification against tax records — resulted in inconsistent formatting in ICE’s data and the IRS’ matching criteria, which led to errors.

The deal led the then-acting commissioner of the IRS to resign.

The report says that after the agreement was signed, ICE requested address information on more than 1.2 million people, and that the IRS ultimately provided last-known addresses for about 47,000 people.

The inspector general concluded that the IRS’ automated matching process was flawed. Inconsistent formatting in ICE’s data led to questionable matches, including in cases in which incomplete or inaccurate addresses were labeled as valid, the report says.

Representatives from the Treasury Department and the IRS did not respond to a request for comment.

The plan to cross-verify tax and immigration data is part of President Trump’s agenda to secure U.S. borders and his nationwide immigration crackdown, which has resulted in deportations, workplace raids and the use of an 18th century wartime law to deport Venezuelan migrants.

However, this is not the first time it’s been revealed that tens of thousands of taxpayers’ information was revealed to ICE.

In February, a federal judge said the IRS broke the law by disclosing confidential taxpayer information to ICE, referring to the same 47,000 disclosures that the inspector general points out.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly found that the IRS had erroneously shared the taxpayer information of thousands of people with the Department of Homeland Security as part of the 2025 agreement.

No recommendations were made in the new inspector general report, according to a letter by Nancy A. LaManna, deputy inspector general for inspections and evaluations.

“However, we plan to share some concerns we identified during our review with the DHS Office of Inspector General,” her letter says.

Hussein writes for the Associated Press.