Q: As we walked near the corner of Huron and Fifth one Saturday, we heard screaming sirens coming down Huron. Around the corner came two blue U-M buses full of very large young men, escorted by a pair of police motorcycles–the football team, we surmised, on its way from the Graduate Hotel to the stadium. Who pays for that?
A. The Michigan State Police (MSP) escort the visiting team, while the U-M police escort our own very large young men.
The MSP accept such work requests only if they are deemed a matter of public safety. U-M football fans can get rambunctious, so this qualifies. (Similar arrangements are made with the MSP when politicians require escorts.) The MSP typically provide two troopers, billed at their overtime rate for the time it takes to escort the visitors from the hotel to the stadium and return.
Though the AAPD doesn’t escort the U-M team, it takes on many additional tasks on game days, including coordinating traffic control with the U-M police department and providing officers to direct vehicles and pedestrians near the stadium. All those expenses are passed on to the U-M athletic department. For September’s four home games, the bills totaled just over $213,000.
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