In Wisconsin, Green Bay officials say the Clinton campaign has yet to pay off bills from events in March, September and November totaling nearly $12,800. Eau Claire, Wisconsin, says Clinton won’t pay a $6,812 from a visit in April. Spokane wants $2,793.

Clinton’s campaign committee has enough money to pay its bills, having last month reported carrying a more than $838,000 surplus on its books. It did not report police bills from Philadelphia, Green Bay or any other locality as campaign debt.

Clinton campaign officials would not talk about the campaign’s non-payment of police bills despite several calls and emails requesting comment. ( Update, 1:08 p.m., Jan. 12, 2017: A former Clinton campaign official, who declined to be named because he is no longer associated with the Clinton campaign committee and does not speak for it, said in an email that “any security-related questions should be referred to U.S. Secret Service. [Hillary for America] did not control and therefore did not request any additional security.”

In March, as the Democratic presidential primary raged, the pro-Sanders Veterans for Bernie organization chided the Clinton campaign for local news reports indicating Clinton was slow to pay her bills for police protection. It likewise boasted that the Sanders campaign showed “an understanding and respect for the challenges faced by municipalities and local police departments” by reimbursing local governments for police protection.

Many police departments would disagree: The Sanders campaign in December reported to the Federal Election Commission that it owed 23 local governments and law enforcement agencies a combined $449,409 for “event security.” In its filing, the Sanders campaign doesn’t dispute the debts.

The cities of Santa Monica, California ($117,047), Irvine, California ($67,000); Tucson ($44,013), Spokane ($33,318) and Vallejo, California ($28,702) are listed as Sanders campaign’s top creditors.

Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs declined to comment, referring questions to the Secret Service.

But Sanders campaign lawyer Brad Deutsch, in responding to a demand letter from Tucson, argued that the Sanders campaign shouldn’t have to pay bills for services that the Secret Service — not the campaign itself — requested. Tucson assigned 76 police officers to staff Sanders’ March 18 campaign rally at Tucson Arena.

“The Campaign did not contract for, not did it request or arrange for the Tucson Police Department to provide public safety at the Campaign event,” wrote Deutsch, who declined to speak on the record for this story. “The level of security or public safety requirements anticipated for any particular event were not dictated by the campaign.”

In Pennsylvania, Chief Mark Toomey of the Upper Providence Township Police Department attempted to convince Sanders’ campaign to pay a $25,620 invoice related to a Democratic primary campaign event in April.

No luck.

“They said [the bill] was exorbitant and too high, and that they didn’t ask for the manpower,” Toomey said. “What if I said, ‘Look, you’re on your own, have fun,’ and a fight breaks out, or something terrible happens? I’m the one who gets skewered — the negatives are endless.”

Ultimately, the Sanders campaign gave the Upper Providence Township Police Department $2,250, and the two sides settled, Toomey said. Toomey added that he considered taking the Sanders campaign to court for non-payment but decided against it.

“Who wants to get bogged down in that?” he asked. “My goal is to make sure the candidate gets in and out — regardless of money or who they are — safely.”

Sheriff John R. Gossage of Brown County, Wisconsin, wasn’t pleased when Casey Sinnwell, Sanders’ national director of scheduling and advance, told him to contact the Secret Service to collect on a $2,883 event security bill.

“I am concerned that the campaign was overly selective as to what service/organization they would reimburse for protective services rendered,” Gossage wrote back, noting that the Sanders campaign did pay one of its bills — all $11,472 of it — that Green Bay’s city government sent it.

What happened then?

“I received no reply,” Gossage said.

Two-thousand miles away, Deputy Sheriff Christine Castillo of the Solano County Sheriff’s Office in California says the Sanders campaign never once responded to the more than $22,100 worth of invoices it sent after staffing campaign events before the state’s Democratic primary on June 4.

“We of course would like them to pay the invoices that we sent previously,” she said.

Sanders could conceivably pay all his police bills immediately: His campaign in December reported having more than $4.71 million cash on hand.

Who should pay for candidate safety?

When a barnstorming presidential candidate sweeps into a city for a campaign rally, often on just a few days notice, if that, it’s often unclear who’s financially responsible for securing the event.

Here’s how events typically unfold: Before a campaign event, the U.S. Secret Service, which is primarily responsible for ensuring the safety of presidential candidates, asks local police departments or other public safety agencies to assist them.

Local governments almost never refuse. They’ll then deploy officers to serve a variety of functions: crowd control, perimeter patrols, closing streets, escorting dignitaries.

After the candidate comes and goes, the host city sometimes bills the presidential campaign for police officer overtime and other related costs.

Why bill the campaign and not the Secret Service?

Because the Secret Service doesn’t reimburse local police jurisdictions, even when it asked for the help.

So … why not?

Blame Congress.

“The U.S. Secret Service is not funded during the appropriations process to reimburse state and local police departments assisting the Secret Service in protective operations,” Secret Service spokeswoman Cathy L. Milhoan said in a statement.

Senate Appropriations Committee spokesman Stephen Worley concurred, noting that Congress also does not provide funding to reimburse state and local law enforcement agencies for presidential visits, heads of state or other high-level dignitaries.

“The prevailing argument has been that state and local law enforcement are responsible for protecting public safety in these circumstances, just as they would around any other event,” Worley said.

It’s a situation that, for Mayor Dwight Jones of Richmond, Virginia, is perplexing.

When Trump conducted a last-minute rally on June 10 in Richmond, the city coughed up more than $41,000 for public safety efforts and police personnel. In a July letter to Douglas Mease, special agent-in-charge of the Secret Service’s Richmond Field Office, Jones argued that his city should be compensated for the “coordinated and massive planning and operational effort by a number of local public safety agencies.”

Richmond has yet to recoup its money, and Jones has now left office.

During presidential candidate events, police forces and municipalities arguably provided governmental services for which campaigns — absent a contract or other security services agreement — aren’t financially responsible, said Eric Wang, a Washington, D.C.-based election lawyer at Wiley Rein LLP and former counsel to current Federal Election Commission Vice Chairwoman Caroline Hunter.

“Reasonable people could certainly dispute whether there is any disputed debt to be reported here,” Wang said. “Just because the local police departments and governments may want the campaigns to reimburse them for the additional security costs doesn’t necessarily mean that, as a matter of law, there is a ‘debt.’”

After all, if candidates had to pay (or at least publicly disclose as “debt”) any bill they received, what would stop someone, particularly scam artists or unscrupulous political actor, from attempting to bleed a campaign of money it doesn’t owe?

Federal law doesn’t offer much clarity.

There’s a “significant amount of ambiguity” in FEC regulations regarding what candidates must publicly disclose as debt, said Brett Kappel, a D.C.-based election lawyer at Akerman LLP.

Deciding whether to fight

A city government’s decision to invoice a presidential campaign for police and security services depends on the city government itself.

While some do, others don’t even bother.

Officials in Cincinnati; Columbus, Ohio; Dallas; Detroit; Kansas City, Mo.; Milwaukee; Las Vegas and Orlando, Florida, for example, said their municipalities generally do not bill presidential campaigns for police protection they provide at campaign events staged within their cities’ limits.

Some officials explained that the exercise is pointless, as campaigns over the years have rarely paid them back. Others consider police protection of political events part of their taxpayer-funded responsibilities — similar to policing a holiday parade, or a peaceful public protest.