No check needed from President Biden for security from La Crosse Police

If the bill were anything close to what Donald Trump or Mike Pence received on their trips to the La Crosse area, Joe Biden could expect to fork over about $5,000 to city police for added security.

Instead, that bill to the president for his Tuesday visit to La Crosse will be zero.

Just a few hours after Biden left town, Police Chief Shawn Kudron said on La Crosse Talk PM that historically, they do not bill for presidential business.

“Standing practice for us is not to bill a sitting president for his visits to our area, to La Crosse,” Kudron said. “Now, campaign season is much different.

“Campaign season, that’s where you’ll see bills going to the different candidates. And, really, it’s incredibly labor intensive when we have several candidates coming at different times.”

So, Biden won’t be getting a bill from the La Crosse P.D. Not yet. Maybe when we get closer to Nov. 5, 2024 — the next presidential election.

La Crosse Police did bill Donald Trump’s campaign for then-sitting Vice President Mike Pence’s Labor Day campaign rally at Dairyland Power in September of 2020.

That bill was paid, however. Even if it was, perhaps by accident. The bill was for 5,574.10 but the Trump campaign wouldn’t say if that payment was intentional.

It stood out at the time because at least 15 other cities had tried – and failed – to get the Trump campaign to pay its bills from police departments.

Last we checked, there are still some semi-recent outstanding bills.

The Trump campaign does owe La Crosse police a total of 9,904.18 — $6,308.93 to the Donald J. Trump for President campaign for Trump’s Aug. 15-16, 2016, visit, as well as another $3,595.25 for a Pence rally on Aug. 11, 2016.

And, for the record, Paul Ryan still owes La Crosse’s police $225 from a bus tour dated Dec. 31, 2016 when he was House Speaker.

If anyone’s wondering about other campaign visits during that time, Onalaska Police said Bernie Sanders paid his bill to them for a rally at the OmniCenter. Trump’s campaign did not pay Onalaska for the rally in West Salem.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign paid its bill to La Crosse Police for an April 2016 campaign stop.