A worker cleans up the littered fields after Boonstock weekend.

(MEAGHAN ARCHER / iNFOnews.ca)

PENTICTON - The police expense report from the Boonstock festival weekend in August has been made public and reveals hundreds of thousands of dollars in overtime, car cleaning services and general supplies.

The police report, released by the provincial government Monday, outlines the $252,715 in policing costs—both anticipated and unexpected—for the August long weekend when over 8,000 people came to Penticton for the music festival.

Penticton RCMP arranged for 40 additional police officers to work the festival, however more officers were called in to help after the private security company hired at the 11th hour by Boonstock organizers failed to provide adequate security services. The scheduled overtime added up to over $155,500 and an extra $29,000 in overtime was added to the bill for call out services. The total cost of police overtime was more than $191,000, according to the police report.

Other police costs include accommodations, transportation, meals, incidents, water, and supplies totalling nearly $61,500. Accommodations for out-of-town officers bore the brunt of the cost with a roughly $25,300 bill, and meals and incidentals coming in with a grand total of $16,300.

Supplies listed in the report include typical necessities, such as medical kits, batteries, sunscreen, ice packs, ear plugs, barricade tape, prisoner envelopes, zapstraps (to be used as handcuffs) and fuel. There are also costs for a helicopter rental ($500) and its cleaning ($30) plus the cleaning of patrol cars, and a Sheriff’s van (a total of $235).

Sheriff’s services were paid $5,200 for three nights’ work from two sheriffs from the Penticton department, plus more than an estimated $3,000 for repairs to the Sheriff’s van, which included a window replacement and fixing a dent in the side of the vehicle.

To contact the reporter for this story, email Meaghan Archer at marcher@infotelnews.ca or call 250-488-3065. To contact the editor, email mjones@infotelnews.ca or call 250-718-2724.

— A line was removed from this story Nov. 25 at 9:35 a.m. It said Boonstock still had to pay $50,000. The information was incorrect. Subsequent stories will provide accurate figures.

News from © iNFOnews, 2014