So it begs the question: is it finacially feasible for any municipality to pay for cadaver teams from other parts of the country for 1 missing person? Would you be willing to pay more taxes for this service?
In addition to initial purchase, which can easily run several thousand dollars, the primary expense for maintaining a certification as a cadaver search team is the recurrent training, with initial and inservice training courses ranging in costs from several hundred to a few thousand dollars apiece, with three to six courses and evaluations per year being common, more for those involved in water search and recovery operations, confined space and collapsed structure search, and maintaining other tracking and trailing ground search certifications as well.
Transportation and local housing can be additional field operating expenses, though many airlines offer sizable discounts for en-route K9 search team members and their dogs, and the USAF Auxialiary [CAP] will fly us to searches beyond a 4-hour drive when a human life is at stake with a possibility of a live *find and save.*
But we NEVER charged a government agency or municipality for our efforts, though offers of on-scene quarters, meals [food and water for the dogs are usually carried to the scene] and local transportation are both helpful and welcomed. And there are several VERY qualified cadaver search units available in the immediate vicinity of the District of Columbia; in Virginia, in particular. Information on the National Association for Search And Rescue [NASAR] *here*.
Information on the NASAR K9 section *here. To answer your question about the cost to taxpayers of using nearby available cadaver search teams assist in the Chandra Levy search, or any other. It wouldn't have cost them so much as one nickel.
Virginia K9 Search resources *here*
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