Palm Beach braces for Trump’s return

Cities and counties say costs of visits disrupt budgets

Taxpayers face a growing tab when President Donald Trump resumes hisMar-a-Lago getaways this fall, Palm Beach officials warned Tuesday.

While Trump’s club remains shuttered for the summer, new budget projections from the town ofPalmBeach showits costs could growto nearly $1million for presidential visits duringTrump’s fouryear term.

Last fall, visits by candidate Trump didn’t prompt the motorcade roadblocks, police overtime and other local security cost spikes that President Trump’s trips to Palm Beach nowgenerate.

“Going forward this could be a huge hit on our budget,” Palm Beach Town Council Member Julie Araskog said Tuesday.

The town anticipates spending nearly $250,000 a year on extra police overtime, temporary fencing and other expenses coming fromhosting the president.

Across the bridge inWest Palm Beach, the Police Department is proposing to set aside $160,000 to help respond to protests and other crowd control duties expected from Trump visits through next summer.

That’s in addition to an even larger public cost for the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, which leads local security during presidential visits.

The Sheriff’s Office estimates that Trump’s visits toMar-a-Lago since Election Day have cost county taxpayers about $4 million.

Sheriff Ric Bradshaw’s budget proposal for the coming year doesn’t specify how much he expects to spend on presidential security. Bradshaw is seeking a nearly 5 percent boost to about $622 million, though his budget proposalshavebeen increasing for years — long before the president’s Bobbie Lindsay, PalmBeach Town Council member

frequent visits.

Congress has agreed to reimburse some local costs for presidential visits, but the Sheriff’s Office has yet to receive federal reimbursements it sought for presidential security expenses.

Palm Beach officials say that federal help may not be enough.

So far, more than half of the town of Palm Beach’s extra expenses frompresidential visits aren’t expected to be eligible for federal reimbursement, Deputy TownManager Jay Boodheshwar said.

“Aquarter of a million dollars in year one is an eye-opener,” Town Council Member Bobbie Lindsay said. “We need to be as aggressive as possible

Buying mobile roadside digital signs to guide island drivers around presidential roadblocks and hiring part-time crews to help police direct traffic during Trump visits are examples of costs that may not be reimbursed.

The Police Department has been “stretched thin” by responding to both protests and traffic jams, Kirk Blouin, the town’s public safety director said.

Using the new digital signs and hiring temporary workers to direct traffic is expected to continue to help respond to congestion from Secret Service road blocks, he said.

“The sheer volume of traffic ... it forced me to be creative,” Blouin said. “The community was demandingwe do something.”

Palm Beach police have responded to about 17 Trump-related protests, many of which occurred when the president wasn’t in town, Blouin said. Large protests can tie up 30 to 35 police officers, he said. to seek reimbursement.”

“We were hoping they would kind of die off ... but you never know,” Blouin said.

The president made seven trips to Palm Beach following his inauguration in January, the last one in April for Easterweekend.

Trump’s visits included golf outings, attending parties at Mara-Lago and summits with the leaders of Japan and China.

Two days of talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping in April attracted thousands of demonstrators aswell as an army of local sheriff’s deputies and police officers who helped with security.

The president’s weekend getaways are expected to resume when Mar-a-Lago reopens and Palm Beach’s social season starts in the fall.

How often Trump will be in town,“nooneknows,” Blouin said.

Staff writer Skyler Swisher contributed to this report.

abreid@sunsentinel.com, 561-228-5504 or Twitter@abreidnews