Mayor asks Trump to ‘pay our taxpayers back’ after unpaid bill for campaign rally

Albuquerque is the latest city to report that the president’s campaign rallies cost ‘hundreds of thousands of dollars’

Donald Trump arrives for a rally in Rio Rancho (AFP/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump is being asked to cough up a $211,175.95 bill for relying on “critical and limited” city police and employees in Albuquerque, New Mexico following a September rally that cost the city 1,500 hours in overtime pay.

“The president’s campaign stop in the Albuquerque area cost the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars, including over 1,500 hours of police overtime that was required by the campaign”, said Mayor Tim Keller. “We are asking the Trump campaign to pay our taxpayers back for the costs from his campaign stop”.

In addition to more than $70k in Albuquerque Police Department support and more than $7,000 for use of the city’s police barricades, the city is giving Mr Trump until 16 November to pay more than $132k in paid time off for city employees who were forced to leave work early to accommodate the president’s visit to Rio Rancho.

Albuquerque’s invoice is the latest among several unpaid security bills in the wake of Mr Trump’s campaign-style rallies across the US.

At least seven other cities haven’t been paid back for overextending local police to accommodate the events. Some invoices are as much as three years old, dating back to rallies Mr Trump hosted before his election in 2016.

An arena in Minneapolis, Minnesota claimed the president was still on the hook for $530k in security and other costs. Facing a threat of litigation from Mr Trump’s campaign, the arena withdrew its request, but the city maintains that the cost of services provided for campaign events should come from the president’s campaign chest and not city coffers.

Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey said that the city’s taxpayers “should not have to bear the brunt of operating costs resulting from the president’s visit”.

In June, The Centre for Public Integrity reported Mr Trump owed an additional $840k from invoices across the US. CNN later found that six of those cities are still waiting for checks.

Though it’s difficult to determine who actually is liable for the cost of local police services for campaign rallies, they’re a requirement for the Secret Service details accompanying them.

In its report, The Centre for Public Integrity argued that the campaign could be flouting federal campaign finance laws for failing to address it debts owed to local governments. Law states that political committees “shall report a disputed debt ... if the creditor has provided something of value to the political committee”. In its mandatory reports to the Federal Election Commission, Mr Trump’s campaign did not disclose actual debts or “disputed debts” to cities or their police departments.