Police officer training costs stay as is, for now
The Moses Lake Police Department and other Washington law enforcement agencies must pay 25 percent of the cost to send recruits to mandatory training. The amount is preferable to a proposed 50 or 100 percent of the cost proposed last legislative session, officials say.
MOSES LAKE - Washington police officials are breathing a collective sigh of relief after the state declined to increase local contributions for officer training.
State law requires each of Washington's 270 police agencies to send new officer recruits to the basic law enforcement training academy in Burien, where they complete a 720 hour program to learn everything from firearms handling to criminal law.
Prior to last year, the state covered the roughly $15,000 cost, which pays for training and ammunition. But as part of the legislature's ongoing quest for savings, the state began obligating local agencies to pick up 25 percent of the tab, or about $3,300 per recruit.
There was concern that amount might be raised this year. The governor's budget proposed cities should pay 50 percent of the cost, while the House suggested they should pay the whole bill. The Senate's proposal ultimately won out, holding the cost at 25 percent.
"If you're asking me, out of the three choices the best one happened," said John Suessman, the basic law enforcement academy commander with the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission. "The Legislature is being very thoughtful in how they're doing things and trying to save money every way they can to keep the doors open and provide quality service."
But Suessman doesn't discount the impact state training costs can have on local law agencies, and said he's spoken with officials who say they're also strapped for cash.
"I had a sergeant here yesterday from Eastern Washington who told me he sent two people over and that ate up their department's entire training budget for the year," he said. "From my position, it would be nice to get back to where we were prior to the recession, but I'm a state employee ... I'm way down in the chain of command here."
Moses Lake Police Chief Dean Mitchell said the cost of basic training was figured into this year's budget, and it shouldn't affect any in-service training his department has planned.
"It's an impact, but what do you do? You just have to absorb it and move on," he said. "We'll just have to take from some other area in our budget to compensate. We've been fortunate, actually, for all these years that the state has picked up those costs."
Mitchell's department typically hires an average of one new officer a year to replace those lost to turnover and attrition. One Moses Lake recruit entered the academy in January and will complete the 17-week program in mid-June, he said. Along with the $3,300 cost, Mitchell said his department has to pay the officer's salary plus benefits while he's at the academy.
"It's a significant cost," he said.
Mitchell said he's hopeful the current costs will stay as is or, better yet, go away once the state's economy turns around, although he's concerned that may never happen.
"History shows that once they set a fee in the state legislature they're not going to have a sunset clause," he said. "We just anticipate that cost is probably going to remain, it's just something we're just going to have to budget for from now on and there's not much we can do."
Suessman said his budget too has been affected by state cuts over the past few years. He recently canceled classes and cut training staff to keep up with a $300,000 funding slice that took effect last September. While in years past he was running about 250 recruits through the academy each year, he was told to run fewer classes with more students in 2011, and graduated about 180 recruits.
The academy is now looking at how many people local law agencies plan on hiring during the next fiscal year, which starts July 1 and ends next June 30, in order to see how many classes they'll be able to hold in 2013.
While local law enforcement agencies are locked in to pay 25 percent of basic training costs for the next four months, Suessman warns an increase could be on the table again next year.
"What happens next legislative session is a whole new ball game," he said. "These are tough times for everybody and we're tightening our belts the best we can."