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A couple of meeting rooms, including one with an on-site bar, are also required for training purposes. The force estimates the total hotel tab will range between $100,000 and $250,000, according to its request for proposals.

Sending more than 200 officers to Phoenix over the six training sessions — with return flights from major Canadian cities ranging from around $550 to $700 — will likely add at least another $100,000 to the total bill.

But RCMP officials say they’re saving taxpayers potentially $120,000 by consolidating the training in one city this year.

“Bottom line is it’s just cheaper to do it in Arizona than what we can provide it for in Canada,” RCMP Insp. Allan Lucier said Thursday in an interview.

The training, which is led by Canadian police officials, involves a two-week, in-classroom theoretical component followed by one week of in-the-field teaching and certification.

In past years, the RCMP would fly in and house officers at a hotel in a Canadian city for the two weeks of theoretical teaching, and then head down to Phoenix for the field certification at the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.

But this year, the RCMP is hoping to save taxpayer cash by flying police officers to one location in Phoenix for all three weeks of training, therein avoiding separate flights to a Canadian city and then on to Arizona as in past years, he said.

Lucier said the Arizona facility trains 85 per cent of all drug-recognition experts in North America, partly because there’s a sufficient number of criminals to examine, so it makes sense to send the officers to Phoenix — even though the training will be done by Canadian officials.