As we prepare to watch the summer Olympics from Sydney, Australia, the scene is very much different in Utah, where the already scandalized 2002 winter games from Salt Lake City loom on the horizon.

At the helm of the money matters connected to the Olympics is Fraser Bullock, Salt Lake Olympic Committee chief financial officer, who, according to CFO magazine is not trying to put on the best Olympics ever in the history of the games. He's just trying to put on the games. Period.

Comparing this event with past Olympics, the games held in 1998 in Japan cost $2.7 million. The original budget for Salt Lake was $1.5 billion, but that now has been reduced to $1.32 billion. Although that still seems like an enormous amount of money, the games already were already on the books as a loss of $379 million when Bullock assumed the CFO role along with the revamped Committee in 1999.

Since then, he has managed to cut $300 million from the deficit, which should certainly help offset any further losses. According to the magazine, since the games already were plagued with one setback after another, Bullock and the Committee thought it best not to count on any more revenues than were originally budgeted.