[T]he bills are coming in and the cost of Vice President Mike Pence’s Labor Day weekend visit to Vermont already totals more than $106,000 for the state Department of Public Safety in payroll alone.
VTDigger earlier this week requested “any and all information regarding costs and expenses to the state Department of Safety, including the Vermont State Police,” associated with the vice president’s three-day, late summer visit to the Green Mountain State.
According to a response provided late Friday afternoon, the payroll expenses “available at this time” for the department for the visit totals $106,825.
“Complete information regarding costs and expenses to the DPS for this visit, including reimbursement for supplies and hotel reservations, is not currently available, but should be available by the end of this month,” Grier Martin, a department public records officer, wrote in an email.
“It is possible that some reimbursement forms for this event will be submitted after November 1, 2018,” Martin added.
The state is not able to seek reimbursement from the federal government to help defray the expenses, according to Adam Silverman, a Vermont State Police spokesperson.
“This is considered a law enforcement agency assist — in this instance, the Secret Service — in the same way that the FBI or ATF would provide assistance to a local or state agency like VSP,” he wrote in an email Friday evening.
“As such,” he added, “there would not be reimbursement.”
Pence reportedly spent most of his time in Vermont at a camp on Lake Hortonia in Hubbardton, a small town in western Rutland County.
The vice president did not hold any official events while in Vermont for the three-day vacation.
A large police presence was reported in the Lake Hortonia area during Pence’s visit, including a state police command post set up for it.
In addition to sightings of Pence fishing on the lake and enjoying a large maple creemee in nearby Sudbury, the vice president also paid a visit to the President Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site in Plymouth Notch.
Silverman, the Vermont State Police spokesperson, on Friday referred specific questions regarding the payroll expenses to Martin, who couldn’t be reached Friday evening.
