Ohio State’s Oval held the largest crowd at a President Barack Obama rally since his election with an estimated 35,000 people, and the big crowd brought big costs.
OSU’s College Democrats hosted Sunday’s event, but the Democratic National Committee paid for it. To rent the Oval alone cost the DNC $10,000.
“My understanding is that it was a lot of money,” said Matt Caffrey, president of College Democrats. “The Democratic party are the ones that actually footed the bill and paid it through us, it’s not something we were directly involved in.”
The DNC will reveal costs for a series of campaign stops leading up to the Nov. 2 election in Federal Election Commission filings, which haven’t been submitted yet. But even those won’t include all campaign costs.
“I can’t tell you the permit cost, and as far as what we spent on lighting and shooting at the event, I don’t think that’s something we’re going to lay out for you,” said Alec Gerlach, regional press secretary for the DNC, in an interview with The Lantern on Monday. “We’re 15 days out from election and we don’t generally show our hand any more than we’re required to.”
OSU Police, Media Relations and Facilities Operations and Development are still calculating the total costs of the event.
It was the responsibility of College Democrats to recruit volunteers and advertise for the rally.
“It took probably close to 1,000 volunteers total, plus all of the security and staff both here in Ohio and in Washington,” said Caffrey, a fourth-year in computer and information sciences and political science. “When the security of the president is involved, there’s a lot of complexity to the event.”
Although volunteers aren’t paid for their help, security personnel are, and police bolstered their numbers during the president’s visit.
“We had a rotating shift, but at any one given time, we had about a maximum of 30 out there, which doesn’t include the motorcade,” said Columbus Police Cmdr. Terry Moore, adding, “We had some overtime costs.”
However, the Columbus Police Department has not received any payments from the DNC for its security services.
“As far as I know, they didn’t pay anything up front,” Moore said. “Will they reimburse us? I can’t tell, but we will probably ask them.”
The Franklin County Sheriff’s Department had 38 deputies at Sunday’s event, which racked up about $35,600 in overtime costs.
“The DNC doesn’t pay for that. They never have and never will,” Chief Deputy Steve Martin said. “We just have to provide security. We do it every election year.”
The DNC might not pay for local agencies to secure the area, but the political group pays for the president and first lady’s travel expenses and the costs to set up the rally. Gerlach would not reveal how much that cost, either.
When the University of Wisconsin held a similar campaign rally featuring Obama on Sept. 28, the university billed the DNC $10,500 for space on Library Mall and basic university services, such as utilities and personnel, said John Lucas, media relations specialist at University of Wisconsin.
After the event, the university billed the DNC an additional $3,000 for bottled water, parking and portable restrooms, on top of the $10,500 in the original agreement.
The Secret Service asked university officials not to disclose numbers regarding security personnel or security costs.
“We will cover those costs directly, as all municipalities do in connection with presidential visits,” Lucas said.
OSU’s event also cost some students time spent on schoolwork, as all buildings on the Oval were closed much of Sunday, and some departments closed buildings for the weekend.
Hopkins Hall, on the Oval, houses computer labs and expensive software that many students rely on for design projects.
“I knew about the event but I didn’t think the security would involve all the buildings around the Oval,” said Moataz Ahmed, a sixth-year in Japanese with a design minor. “I don’t have PhotoShop on my computer and I saved my project on a server in this building.”
Aaron Ganci, a graduate teaching associate in the Department of Design, said officials didn’t give proper notice that the building would be closed.
“I think they didn’t do a super good job of letting people know enough in advance that the building was going to be closed all weekend,” he said. “It really hurt students.”
Design students in Ganci’s class had a project due Monday, and he didn’t realize the rally would be an obstacle until he got e-mails from students saying they were locked out of the building.
He gave many of them extensions on their projects.
“I obviously understand,” he said. “It’s hard to do things if you don’t have the resources.”
