Governor's security tab is off the charts

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 1/28/8 | Phillip Matier, Andrew Ross

[SmithL]

The cost to taxpayers of protecting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and California's other top officials has nearly tripled since the Governator took office, to close to $38 million a year, figures obtained by The Chronicle show.

The California Highway Patrol, which guards the officials, won't release budget figures covering just the governor out of security considerations. But it's pretty clear from what people tell us that the big spending isn't on the state schools superintendent or the insurance commissioner - it's on Schwarzenegger.

Five years ago, during Gray Davis' last year in office, the CHP spent $14.4 million providing security to the governor and six other constitutional officers, plus state appeals and Supreme Court judges and building grounds. Last year, the total was $37.6 million, documents show.

But then, Davis wasn't an action hero movie star with a Kennedy for a wife and four children to guard.

The CHP doesn't like to talk about specifics of the security it provides to the governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, controller, treasurer, schools chief and insurance commissioner. And just obtaining the tab to taxpayers took a request filed under the state's Public Records Act.

But officials both inside and outside the administration say the CHP concluded that Schwarzenegger's international celebrity status and the history of assassinations in wife Maria Shriver's family - she's the niece of John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy - justified a heightened level of security.

The raised risk assessment, however, has led to some eyebrow-raising measures.

Legislative sources say Schwarzenegger has been spotted with no fewer than seven bodyguards at some functions.

[IncPen]

Legislative sources say Schwarzenegger has been spotted with no fewer than seven bodyguards at some functions.

Give us our guns, or give away yours, Arnold.

[Moral Hazard]

This is the one piece of spending Arnold has made that doesn’t bother me.

It’s not like security is a perk. Having more security doesn’t improve your quality of life, it just improves the probability that your life will continue.

[calcowgirl]

And just obtaining the tab to taxpayers took a request filed under the state's Public Records Act.

"I will open up the windows and doors of government.
It is time to let the sun shine in. . . .

-- Arnold Schwarzenegger, 2003 (pre-election)

[ARE SOLE]

38 million taxpayer dollars and 7 bodyguards to defend a multi millionaire while he runs my state into the ground? The last thing this wad needs is defending. Send this Austro-socialist home.

[SmithL]

That will come,

---

. . . right after the "Blowing up boxes in Sacramento" is complete.