It's an election year and with many presidential candidates visiting our area, the cost of security comes right out of your pocket. The stress on law enforcement pocketbooks comes at a time when many are struggling through staffing cuts, forced to do more with less.
Last year in 2011, a non-election year, the Davenport Police Department spent a little over $33,000 on two visits from President Obama.
Back in 2004, which was an election year, the QC got 14 visits from candidates and their wives. That cost Davenport Police over $100,000 in security costs.
The amount of money spent really just depends on the campaign that year and how early it starts.
In 2007, the year before an election, we got 14 visits from then Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, ringing in at a little over $70,000.
It's different each time, but law enforcement agencies in the QC say it takes a number of people to secure each place, costing time and money.
"It is something no agency can plan for," Major Mike Brown of the Scott County Sheriff's Department says, "It's tough, we're scrambling to get together and you have to for the following several days."
Brown has been with the Scott County Sheriff's Office since 1986. Since then he's worked on about 50 visits over the years, with the QCA being a hot spot for political visits, both planned and unplanned.
"You can't budget for this, no agency can budget for it because you don't know what you're going to get," Brown says.
Agencies get hit hardest in overtime costs. Some visits, like President Obama's last August cost Davenport Police 80 officers and over $32,000, almost $10,000 of that came from overtime.
"There are a lot of resources that are exhausted in this type of operation," Capt. David Struckman of the Davenport Police Department says, "There's some overtime costs that cannot be avoided, and those can add up pretty rapidly."
Authorities say they try to cut down on cost where they can, switching out officers with reserve units or re-assigning people already on duty from other departments. But with a tight budget, which forced the police department to cut ten part time employees and reduce front desk hours, anything extra really affects the money flow.
"The budget's tight and we receive no reimbursement for any of the funds we expend or for the resources so it's all out of our budget," Struckman says.
With election season just getting started, there's no light at the end of the tunnel, until at least November.
"We've had Vice President Biden in March, Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney yesterday, and we have a possibility VP Biden coming next week," Struckman says of this year's visits.
"We are really aware that this is in the wind, this is in the area," Brown says, "We are gearing up for the fact we will probably be getting more visits. All we can do is go with the flow."
