South Dakota has seen more than its fair share of prominent political figures recently, and local and county law enforcement officials say the presidential campaign limelight means a significant supporting role on their part.

The locally tax-funded agencies must cover the costs associated with providing manpower for security and other assistance for the events. Local law enforcement agencies are not reimbursed by political campaigns or federal law enforcement, officials said Thursday. Costs related to the visits were not immediately available.

Much of the responsibility of providing security for high-profile visits from Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., former President Bill Clinton and an upcoming stop from Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., falls to the Rapid City Police Department, the Pennington County Sheriff's Office and the South Dakota Highway Patrol, law enforcement officials said Thursday.

Depending on the scale of the event, the law enforcement effort can be quite an undertaking. Hillary Clinton's Wednesday visit to Rapid City was a prime example, Lt. Jay Evenson of the Pennington County Sheriff's Office said.

"For her first visit to Jerry's Cakes & Donuts, that was pretty minimal," said Evenson, who supervises the city's Special Response Team, which was present at both of Hillary Clinton's visits. "But with an event like the visit to Memorial Park, we had to provide a little bit more as far as crowd control, traffic control and intelligence."

Capt. Deb Cady of the Rapid City Police Department said the different local, state and county agencies work together to meet a wide range of security needs that include perimeter security, traffic and crowd control, airport security and escorting the candidates' motorcades.

The joint effort between local law enforcement provides about half of the security for most of the political events, and the Secret Service provides the other half.

Although the agencies are happy to provide the needed resources, Cady said, her department also had to supply some personnel from criminal investigations to provide the needed bodies for Clinton's visit. "We draw on different areas of the department to get the personnel that we need, but keep in mind, we need to do our regular jobs, as well," she said.

"When the visits happen during the week, it's just the inconvenience," Evenson said. "If you take somebody away from investigations, then you're taking them away from their cases. For the most part, it's a matter of reallocating your resources."

But for weekend events, such as Bill Clinton's May 10 speech at Stevens High School and Sen. Barack Obama's planned visit to the Pennington County Event Center on Saturday, the different departments often must bring in additional manpower to accommodate separate campaign stops.

Cady and Evenson said the number of additional officers needed depends on the size of the event, but more often than not, shifting schedules means overtime.

"For members on salary, the extra hours don't matter too much," Cady said. "But we do have union contracts, so if we bring someone in on a weekend, we're going to compensate them for that."

The candidates' often-last-minute planning also makes scheduling security a little tricky.

"We've been getting anywhere from 24 to 48 hours' notice, but when they decide to make a stop somewhere else, it can be a pretty short amount of time to prepare," Evenson said.

Fortunately, remaining flexible is something law enforcement officials are used to.

"We're used to dealing with the unexpected," Cady said. "We'll just adapt and do what we need to do to secure the event."