Overtime pay for police, alone, from the initiative’s onset Aug. 14 through Dec. 31 was well over $600,000.
The Utah Highway Patrol had overtime allocations of $586,125; the Salt Lake City Police Department spent $27,763; Salt Lake County’s Unified Police Department’s overtime totaled $28,037.
During the same time period, the Utah Department of Corrections estimates it spent about $800,000 for probation and parole agents to take part in the initiative.
All told, that’s $1.44 million, or about $320,000 per month.
The law enforcement expenditures are expected to drop as Operation Rio Grande moves forward, said spokesman Nate McDonald.