Let’s do some inauguration arithmetic, starting with the basics: portajohns, or portable bathrooms.
The District of Columbia is expected to host some 4 million visitors during the four-day celebration of Barack Obama’s presidency late next month. They will need toilets. Lots of toilets. Some estimates have come in at the need for 40,000 portapotties. Seems low to me.
At $50 a day for each, which seems reasonable for carting them in and out and setting them up and cleaning then out and all, the tab will be $8 million.
Who’s going to pay?
Right now D.C. City Administrator Dan Tangherlini and his staff are crunching numbers. How much overtime for 4,000 cops, who will be expected to keep the peace 24/7 for four days? How much for fire department and emergency medical services? How much to keep the streets and sidewalks clean? What about all the motorcades to protect multitudes of dignitaries? No doubt our Homeland Security apparatus will be on high alert.
I couldn’t squeeze any official estimates on how much they expect to need to cover the city’s tab, but I hear the lowball is $25 million.
Each year the federal government appropriates a lump sum to cover what the District pays to handle crowds and demonstrations that come to our streets because the federal government is here. It works like this: Congress appropriates funds under the consolidated security act, they sit in accounts until the city needs the money and draws it down.
In past years, Congress has appropriated $3 million. This year, anticipating an extravagant inauguration, Congress actually authorized $15 million and gave it to the city in a lump sum.
“No one believes $15 million will cover what this inauguration will cost,” one D.C. budget official says. “No one thinks the city is awash in money.”
But there are those who believe the District will be awash in tax revenues from the four-day bash.
Won’t all this revelers fill the city’s tax coffers from hotel and restaurant and bar bills? Will that not defray the costs of hosting?
Perhaps.
Two pieces of good news: D.C. has not used all of the funds that have been appropriated in the past few years. According to my sources, the city can still draw down $7 million from those funds. And portapotties on the Mall and other federal property are the responsibility of the U.S. Park Service.
Add the $15 million to the $7 million and the District is starting out with $22 million to pay for city services for the 4 million guests.
Sometime this week, Tangherlini is expected to come up with the city’s estimated costs for serving as party central. At which time Mayor Adrian Fenty should submit our bill, and Congress should pay up front — as it does for all of the demonstrations we host.
