The Boston Marathon bombings and the ensuing manhunt for the suspects cost communities across Greater Boston tens of thousands of dollars in police overtime.
Area cities and towns are calculating their expenses and submitting them for federal reimbursement. In Watertown — where one of the suspected bombers, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, died after a shootout with police, and the other suspect, his 19-year-old brother Dzhokhar, was found hiding — the overtime and equipment costs for the Police Department are expected to exceed $250,000.
The overtime bills reported by neighboring police agencies that sent officers to help in Boston, Cambridge, and Watertown range from $48,197 in Waltham to $20,051 in Newton. Arlington’s Police Department has not tallied up its costs, after sending officers to assist Boston and Watertown, and deploying additional officers in its own neighborhoods, said Chief Frederick Ryan.
Belmont police did not return calls last week seeking information on its expenditures.
A federal disaster declaration for Norfolk, Middlesex, and Suffolk counties will provide 75 percent reimbursement of eligible expenditures, according to the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.
But officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency have not determined what will be covered under the reimbursement, including overtime pay and the use of department equipment, according to an official with the state agency.
“This is a whole new world for FEMA,” said Peter Judge, a spokesman for MEMA, which is assisting police departments in filing for the federal aid. “FEMA still is trying to figure out what actions will, or will not, qualify.”
Departments have until late June to notify FEMA of their intent to apply for reimbursement for costs incurred from April 15 to April 22, Judge said.
Unlike in a natural disaster, communities will not apply directly to FEMA for reimbursement. Instead, police departments will send their bills to the three communities that requested mutual aid for the week after the bombings.
“Ultimately, Boston, Cambridge, and Watertown will submit for reimbursement to us,” Judge said.
Newton’s force planned to send its reimbursement request to Boston last week. Sixty-two officers and supervisors and two dispatchers worked a combined total of nearly 500 hours on the days following the bombings, according to Hugh Downing, the Police Department’s executive officer.
Most of the work was in Watertown, where Newton’s officers handled routine calls while the local force handled the emergency situation related to the shootout and manhunt, Downing said.
Some Newton officers also responded to suspicious-activity calls, and stood guard around the neighborhood where authorities eventually found Dzhokhar Tsarnaev hiding in a boat parked in a backyard.
Waltham deployed 37 officers to Watertown. Earlier in the week, about 12 officers and a civilian dispatcher assisted in Boston as part of the North Eastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council’s response to the April 15 attack, said Police Chief Keith MacPherson.
In all, his officers worked a total of 911 hours from April 15 to 19, MacPherson said.
Watertown is in the early stages of calculating how much overtime its officers logged, said Lieutenant Michael Lawn, a department spokesman.
But early last week, Watertown Police Chief Ed Deveau gave an initial estimate of more than $250,000.
“Based on our involvement in the Boston bombings and then with everything coming out to Watertown, we’ve created a credible amount of increased monies in overtime and equipment,” he said. “We’re working with FEMA and MEMA to try to get those costs covered.”
While waiting for their reimbursements, which could take months, some departments are asking municipal officials for additional overtime money to help balance their budgets.
Police overtime budgets were already stretched this year by snowstorms, special elections, and additional investigations before the bombings occurred, said officials in Newton and Waltham.
Newton police will ask city officials to inject an additional $100,000 into the overtime budget to help the department get through the end of the fiscal year, June 30, Downing said.
In Waltham, MacPherson said he asked the City Council for $110,000
to cover overtime costs through next month.
The department’s overtime account for the fiscal year already was reaching its limit, due to the February blizzard, Hurricane Sandy, and four elections, he said.
“Rather than make two separate filings, I bumped up my original request.”