President Obama’s nuclear summit will cost taxpayers nearly $4.4 million for overtime costs alone, the Washington Examiner has learned.
D.C. police, firefighters, paramedics and dispatchers racked up nearly 52,000 hours of overtime during the April summit that brought dozens of world leaders to discuss nuclear disarmament.
The overwhelming majority of the extra pay hours were chalked up to the police department. Cops were paid for more than 49,000 hours of overtime for a $4.3 million tab, figures kept by the city finance office show.
The District’s taxpayers are on the hook for the extra charges so far. But the White House has already promised to reimburse the city for the costs, finance office spokesman David Umansky said. That would disperse the charges among federal taxpayers.
That’s cold comfort for critics like the libertarian Cato Institute’s Jim Harper, who says that the wire fences, barricades and armed motorcades often make him feel like he’s living in a garrison state.
“Threat inflation is good for government,” he said. “The citizens of the District are regarded as inert objects for the government to push around for its benefit. These people are supposed to working for us.”
When a 68-year-old cyclist was killed by a National Guard truck that was part of the summit’s security detail, some critics say it was a perfect metaphor for D.C.’s colonial status.
“The White House and Congress can stick anything to the District,” D.C. Statehood/Green Party spokesman Scott McLarty said.
A White House spokeswoman declined comment, referring calls to the Secret Service. Secret Service spokesman Malcolm Wiley said his agency “always take[s] a measured approach” and tries “to make the footprint as small as it can be” but the nuclear summit was a massive event and the margins for error were small.
“There were nearly 50 heads of state and heads of government in one place for this event,” he said. “It’s not something that happens very often in D.C.”
The nuclear summit was a public relations coup for Obama but many in the District resented the disruption. The neighborhoods around the District’s convention center were covered in wire fences, Metro service was canceled, and streets were blocked while motorcades swarmed around the capital.
Overtime for nuclear summit
» Dispatchers — 120 overtime hours, $7,482
» Firefighters and paramedics — 2,162 hours, $69,171
» Police officers — 49,339 hours, $4.3 million
Source: D.C. finance office
