NEW YORK, NY -- October 12, 2011 -
The Occupy Wall Street demonstration is ringing up a serious tab for taxpayers. New York City's police commissioner says the bill is now in the millions.
Commissioner Ray Kelly confirmed that the cost of police overtime to patrol Wall Street so far is two-million-dollars.
That's because most of the police are on overtime so they can also do regular shifts, some elsewhere. That ends up costing tax payers everyday more than 70-thousand dollars, 20 thousand more than the median yearly salary for a New Yorker.
Demonstrators agree there is no set end date for their protest, so count on spending more of your tax dollars and taxes from an unlikely source; Wall Street.
Yes that's right, Wall Street pays a noteworthy percentage of all New York taxes. 13 percent of state revenues and seven percent of city revenues come from Wall Street firms. In other words, for every 10 cops you see protecting the people protesting Wall Street profits, one cop is being paid for by Wall Street profits and by tax payers.
In addition plenty of people are choosing to spend their money to support these protesters.
New York's police commissioner says his officers must use overtime to patrol the protest, because the department has shrunk by six-thousand over the last four years.
