VANOC says the operational costs of the Olympic Games will be nearly fully funded by private revenue. (CBC)

The organizers of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver have slashed some expenses, rejigged priorities and bumped up the bottom line in a final tune-up of their operating budget, almost one year before the Games begin.

The Vancouver Organizing Committee, known as VANOC, says it has cancelled the evening medal ceremonies planned for Whistler, cut its marketing and communications budget by $5 million and its technology budget by $6.5 million.

VANOC CEO John Furlong said they are still on track to have a balanced budget to cover the operation of the Games, but a change in accounting methods added an additional $127 million to the final tally.

"We are committed to staging spectacular Games within our available financial resources," Furlong said Friday morning, as he released the recently revised $1.76-billion budget for the running of the Games.

Global crisis prompted revision

VANOC's board of directors asked staff to revise the budget last spring after they became concerned about the effects the global financial crisis might have on funding. The process was revisited in the fall after the world financial slump sharpened.

"Our priority in re-examining our budget has always been to ensure the best experience possible for the world's best athletes while they're here in Vancouver and Whistler in 2010," Furlong said.

"We also want to make sure the spectators — from here and guests from around the world — take away great lifelong memories from their Olympic and Paralympic experiences," he said.

With these priorities in mind, cost savings were identified in areas of VANOC's budget during an extensive project review to update the budget, and a $60 million boost was moved to areas such as sport, services and Games operations, said Furlong.

Olympic operations privately funded

Most of the Games' $1.76-billion operating budget is financed by private sector revenue sources, including domestic and international sponsorships, the International Olympic Committee, international licensing and merchandising, ticket sales and fundraising.

VANOC still wants to sign up four or five major sponsors to fill an estimated $30 million hole in the budget, but the global financial crisis is making that increasingly difficult, officials said Friday morning.

Tickets for the Games are now expected to sell out, allowing VANOC to project revenue from ticket sales at $17 million more than previously estimated.

The budget's contingency fund of $100 million, set aside to meet unexpected expenses, was tapped in the latest budget to meet some costs, leaving $77 million in the fund.

Venues on budget and on time: VANOC

The cost of building the venues for the Games remains entirely separate from the operating budget, said VANOC.

Venue construction has been equally funded by the governments of Canada and British Columbia and is on time, on budget at $580 million and within a few weeks of completion, said VANOC.

The only Games venue to run into significant problems has been the Olympic Village, which is being built by Millennium Development. The City of Vancouver was forced to take over at least some of the financing of that project after lender Fortress Investments stopped advancing money for construction.

The development cost is estimated at slightly more than $800 million, but the city is expected to recover much or all of the cost though the sale of condominium units after the Games.

Critics have said that the provincial government has not properly represented the full cost of staging the Games because the $600 million initially budgeted for the upgrade of the Sea-to-Sky Highway connecting Whistler and Vancouver and the roughly $2 billion cost of the Canada Line rapid transit system connecting the airport with downtown Vancouver have not been included in official estimates.

In addition, no final budget has been released for the security costs of the Games, but previous estimates have pegged that cost at $1 billion, to be shared by the federal and provincial governments.