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Greensboro, NC -- North Carolina is a battleground state in this year's election, and the Guilford County Sheriff's office is anticipating dozens of campaign visits as the battle for votes wages on.
This month, the Triad has already had a visit from Ann Romney. This week, First Lady Michelle Obama will be in Greensboro.
While campaign stops mean more chances to learn about the candidates and their platforms, it also means headaches and tax dollars being spent on logistics.
The Guilford County Sheriff's Office is anticipating about 40 presidential campaign visits here in North Carolina between now and Election Day.
Col. Randy Powers, with the sheriff's office, said he believes a lot of those visits will be in the Triad, based on the number of visits we had here four years ago.
"It can be fairly costly, but it's hard to put a figure to it on each and every one because it's different. If they go one way, we have to have a certain amount of people. If they go into the city, we have to have a different amount of people," said Powers.
Powers said their office has to be ready for everything from manning PTI Airport, helping the Secret Service with the motorcades, and securing the locations where the candidates are holding events.
On top of that, Powers said if a candidate stays overnight, deputies have to spend the night on the candidate's aircraft.
And more manpower equals more money -- taxpayer money.
Powers said the manpower they need depends on who the person is and the security threat level, which comes from the Secret Service.
According to Powers, the sheriff's office never takes patrolmen off the streets. They use as many deputies as they can who do not have a patrol function, like those manning courtrooms and detectives.
Once they've exhausted those options, they use off-duty officers and pay overtime because they have to make sure when anyone calls 911, their response will be no different.
"We got to do what we got to do to get to the calls. There should not be any delays in service during those periods of time," Powers said.
The sheriff's office asked Guilford County for more money in this year's budget because they had anticipated campaign season. Powers also added that they've asked their employees not to schedule their vacations during the campaign craziness.
WFMY News 2