[iron81]

Illinois is horrible for what Zygote is describing. There are seven statewide elected officers and most of them appear regularly on TV in person on ads touting some government program: organ donation or children's health care or something similar. Of course, the State picks up the tab for these thinly veiled campaign ads.

I don't think there is as much of a problem with Tom's problem. The police department is frequently reimbursed for services provided to private entities. Two examples I can think of are traffic control and making officers and squad cars available for movie scenes. I suspect the police department here got something similar.