The 2028 Olympics are still six years away from the moment their five interlocking rings light up over Los Angeles. But this week, it became a lot clearer who's on the hook if the party goes over budget: you are.

The City Council voted 10-4 on Aug. 12 to advance a reimbursement deal with LA28, the private committee running the Games — a deal that lays out how the city gets paid back for extra services, but doesn't actually guarantee it will recover the hundreds of millions of dollars it's expected to spend on security alone.

Even the city's own negotiator won't call this a safety net.

City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo, who led the negotiations, was candid with council members about what the agreement can and can't do. "This is not an agreement that is intended, or even has the capability of eliminating risk that the city has agreed to take on," Szabo said, according to the Westside Current.

Here's what that risk actually looks like on paper.

If LA28 runs major losses, the city covers the first $270 million out of pocket. The state picks up the next $270 million. After that, whatever's left lands on the city's general fund — the same pot of money that pays for everyday services like fixing potholes and staffing libraries, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Security is its own separate headache. LAPD and other agencies are expected to provide roughly $732.2 million in Games-related security — costs this particular agreement doesn't even touch. LA28's own $7.1 billion budget doesn't include security spending at all, LAist reported. The city is banking on $1 billion in federal money set aside under President Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" to cover most of that bill — but officials worry that reimbursement might only arrive after the city has already written the checks.

Four council members weren't willing to take that gamble.

Council members Monica Rodriguez, Nithya Raman, Eunisses Hernandez and Ysabel Jurado voted no, the Daily News reported. Rodriguez didn't mince words in her statement, saying the agreement "fails to establish a clear baseline of City services, financial protections for Los Angeles taxpayers, and accountability" and "embarrassingly weakens the City's authority to audit LA28's finances."

Civil rights attorney Connie Rice, who's tracked the city's negotiations with LA28 closely, was even more blunt, calling the deal a "PR document" that "leaves the taxpayers with a GoFundMe strategy" if the federal security money doesn't come through as hoped. City Controller Kenneth Mejia said he intends to use his office's own charter authority to dig into LA28's finances before the Games even begin — a signal that oversight isn't done just because the council voted.

One safeguard did make it through.

Not everything proposed got shut down. Under one amendment that passed, LA28 will have to pay for an independent audit after the Games before the city can be asked to cover any cost overruns — though LA28 still has to formally sign off on that provision for it to actually stick. Five other proposed protections, including a Raman amendment that would have forced LA28 to use any surplus money to pay off outstanding city costs first, got sent back to committee instead of being adopted outright. As the deal stands now, LA28 isn't required to do that.

What's still ahead.

The city and LA28 still have to work out separate agreements covering what L.A. provides at individual Olympic venues — Dodger Stadium, the Convention Center, the Coliseum, the Venice Beach Boardwalk — with those details expected by July 2027 and final costs locked in by October of that year. In other words: the biggest financial questions in this story are still being written.