Tighter budgets make police training an issue

By Kari Petrie

St. Cloud Times

ST. CLOUD, Minn. (AP) - Shrinking budgets and less financial help from the state means police departments are cutting back on training, leading to more cooperation among departments but more worry about how well police departments are keeping up with change.

State law requires that police officers receive training every year in the proper use of force, and every three years in emergency vehicle operations and pursuits. Additional training on topics such as domestic violence and Internet crimes are taught as funds are available, whether through budgets or grants.

And dwindling budgets make it less likely that departments can do those types of training.

"It means there are fewer tools in the toolbox," Minnesota Board of Peace Officer Standards and Training Executive Director Neil Melton said.

Departments are relying more on each other to get the training they need, combining resources and doing more in house. It is a trend Melton is seeing statewide.

"A real partnership attitude has developed," he said. The state has a training reimbursement fund fed by a training surcharge on fines for criminal and traffic convictions.

When the surcharge was established, police departments were supposed to get 39 percent of those dollars, Melton said, with the rest going to the state's general fund. But the share departments see is really about 20 percent, he said. And the percentage has been falling.

In 2003 each department was reimbursed $424 per officer. This year each department will get $341 per officer. That amount can be exhausted during one day of pursuit driving training, Melton said.

Local governments have to make up the rest of training costs. Melton said department heads have told him the money they receive from the state fund on average makes up about 15 percent of their training budgets. For others, it is all they get.

Law enforcement agencies are doing more training together as a way to save money. Not all departments have trainers, so they share those resources. Departments also share their training schedules, so if an officer missed a training course he or she can train with another department.

Police chiefs know they have to keep their officers up to date as criminals discover new ways to commit crimes.

"The criminals are more sophisticated," Waite Park Police Chief Dave Bentrud said. "We've got to keep up."

Buying new equipment also means additional training. Taser International requires that each person certified to use a Taser is trained by deploying two cartridges each year. For St. Cloud Police Department, that means buying 240 cartridges for training alone, Training Sgt. Marty Sayre said.

"You can't avoid that cost," he said.

Stearns County recently got a new interactive video shooting simulator from Hennepin County at no cost. The simulator lets deputies practice making quick decisions.

"It is training that we don't routinely do," Sanner said.

Thirty-five officers from law enforcement agencies in Stearns, Benton, Sherburne and Wright counties recently participated in five days of intensive training on handling sexual assault cases. The Central Minnesota Sexual Assault Center paid for the training with a federal grant.

The training otherwise would cost $675 per officer.

"That's pretty significant," center staffer Lisa Santee said of the savings.

The in-depth training provided information on crisis intervention, interviewing victims, Internet crimes and other topics.

"We want to advance the response to be victim-based rather than system-based," Santee said.

The same federal grant also helps pay for overtime hours officers work while investigating sex crimes and to buy equipment or Sherburne County's crime lab.

Sanner said similar grant partnerships have been done with Anna Marie's Alliance domestic violence shelter.

Other resources are available to local departments.

Training for St. Cloud's Tactical Response Team can be $1,000 per person. But St. Cloud lucked out when the FBI said it would conduct a five-day training for 15 officers at no cost to St. Cloud police.

St. Cloud Police Chief Dennis Ballantine said with a new headquarters he hopes to hold more training on site. As the host, the department can usually get the training for free but only if other departments pay to participate.

Sayre said he would like to be more proactive with grants and apply for additional training. But there's a catch: He needs to be trained in how to effectively write grant applications, and he can't get approval for that additional training.

Not to mention the time that it takes to write grants when department staff are already doing more with less.

"The plates are full," Sayre said.

Police officials insist that the drop in training hasn't hurt public safety. But they say that if the trend continues, it could affect officer performance.

Police officers still have the same number of days set aside for training and are getting time to go over how to perform the more difficult parts of their job, Sayre said.

Ballantine said he's not worried about public safety, but is concerned about what less training could mean for his officers' mindsets.

"Their confidence level could deteriorate over time," he said.

But Bentrud said he worries what the effects of dwindling training budgets could have on public safety.

"If (training is) neglected too long, there can be a price paid," he said. "That's not good for public safety."

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Information from: St. Cloud Times

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