I'm only an amateur aviation geek but this number ($3k / hr) doesn't strike me as excessive. Aircraft in general, and helicopters in particular, are expensive - everything about them is expensive. Fuel, parts, maintenance. For every hour of actual use, you need to spend time training pilots, you need "spare" pilots, who are paid a lot, and also require training... Aircraft spend spare parts faster than cars in routine operation, much more so than cars (which only need parts when something breaks, if you're lucky you could go for years with no major spare parts needed in a car).

Whether they overuse helicopters is a separate matter - no idea.