In a press conference announcing the release of the Metro Event Resource Guide at the Green Building Tuesday, Mayor Jerry Abramson was telling event organizers about how great it is that the city has so many wonderful events. One of the event organizers asked him if he could give them all a break on fees.

The Mayor stopped smiling for a millisecond, then responded by talking about the challenging decisions the Administration has had to make as it tries to balance its budget. As an example, he said, event organizers are having to pay for police to provide traffic control. This includes the University of Louisville.

The University of Louisville athletic department is going to be paying $10,000 per home football game for traffic control at home football games next year, confirms assistant LMPD chief Troy Riggs. It will be the first time that LMPD has charged U of L for the service. Riggs said LMPD recently notified the school of the new policy, but hadn’t received word of any reaction from the university.

U of L spokesman John Drees acknowledged that the school was aware of the new policy.

Abramson told the event organizers that the Lexington police charge UK $30,000 per home game, but the local police had not been charging U of L, until now. Riggs said the fee was determined after LMPD officials figured out how many off-duty police officers it typically calls in, on an overtime basis, to work the U of L games.

When asked if the fee was being negotiated, Riggs said it is not. The school has been notified that it will be charged for 2009 home football games.