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Monday, March 18, 2024
March 18, 2024

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Clark County sheriff looks into starting own academy

Committee says idea has merit

By , Columbian Breaking News Reporter
Published:

Long lines at an underfunded state law enforcement academy have left Clark County Sheriff Chuck Atkins with a shortage of deputies. But he’s not going to sit around waiting for a solution — he’s actively looking to solve the problem himself.

One option he’s considering, he said, is “can we hold our own academy class?”

To answer that question, Atkins formed a committee to investigate what it would take to make a local police academy a reality. That committee determined that the idea is a real possibility, and classes could be offered as early as the end of the year, Undersheriff Mike Cooke said.

“We’re going to continue forward as if we will need to have our own academy,” Cooke said. “We’re hopeful that either more academy classes open up or we can have more slots allocated to us considering the crisis that we’re in. … Our preference would be to send our people to the state academy, only holding our own academy as a last resort.”

The Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission is funded to run only 10 basic law enforcement classes a year, though to meet demand, they’d need to hold 18, said Sue Rahr, executive director for the training commission.

Each class has a maximum capacity of 30 new law enforcement officials. The current contract guarantees the King County Sheriff’s Office five spots in each class and Seattle Police Department seven spots in each class. Those agencies provide free instructor time, Rahr said, and also pay the same price for the training even though their recruits don’t use the dorms or eat the food.

That leaves all of the other police agencies in the state 18 spots each month to fight over.

According to training commission rules, if a recruit drops out of the class, that spot will be filled by a recruit from the smaller law enforcement agencies. Rahr said that those agencies, which she defines as about 20 officers or fewer, feel the burden of a vacancy more than their larger counterparts.

But that means that each month, the Clark County Sheriff’s Office anxiously awaits an email to find out if their deputies are among those who have earned a spot in the state’s law enforcement academy.

Seven newly hired deputies at the agency are in line to take the 4½-month training — a requirement to become a commissioned law enforcement officer in Washington. Some of those new hires have been waiting months. 

Three of those new hires are working as corrections deputies until they can switch to patrol.

Two of the other hires currently are cadets and the other two are in entry-level positions. Those employees help with events, get some on-the-job training such as shadowing detectives, and do clerical work such as scanning files — all while getting paid a deputy’s salary of $26.10 an hour.

“We have to have them on the payroll,” said Breanne Nelson, human resource manager for the sheriff’s office. “Another agency will swoop them up and, to submit an application to the academy, they need to be on the payroll.”

While they wait, patrol deputies are racking up more overtime than ever.

Overtime pay rises

Based on numbers from the past few years, the sheriff’s office normally spends about $308,500 in overtime during the first three months of the year, sheriff’s office Finance Manager Darin Rouhier said.

But this year, they’ve spent $473,000, a 53 percent increase.

“It’s a balancing act of how much will (a regional academy) cost to do versus how much will it cost to pay to fill vacancies because we can’t get people into the academy,” Cooke said. “Right now, it looks like it will be beneficial to run our own academy.”

The agency already has looked into striking a deal with the academies for the Washington State Patrol and those held in Oregon, but Atkins said they are all having the same problem.

With a local academy, should it become reality, the sheriff’s office would replicate the state academy’s curriculum and use certified instructors from the area to teach there. Classes would serve hires from the sheriff’s office as well as recruits from other agencies in the region.

“People would be clamoring to get down here,” Atkins said.

The committee is still in the process of figuring out what a regional academy would cost to run.

“These things don’t happen if you don’t ask questions to see if it’s viable,” Atkins said. “It seems like a no-brainer to us.”

Others like idea

Prosecuting Attorney Tony Golik has agreed to let his deputy prosecuting attorney teach various courses, and Clark County Councilor Julie Olson is also on board.

“I think it just makes sense. We have to do something,” Olson said. “Collectively, there is a legislative body here that would support this program.”

Rahr, of the state’s police-training commission, said that she understands the Clark County sheriff’s predicament, but thinks the solution is a short-sighted one.

“It lets the state off the hook,” she said. “The state not only is responsible by law to provide that training, they’re receiving funding from local jurisdictions, meaning the local tax payers would be paying twice.”

She also said that the state academy has put together a very experienced training cadre.

“Local agencies are not going to have the breadth of experience and qualifications in local trainers,” she said. “I think if we start fragmenting the training, I think it’s certainly going to hurt the consistency of training.”

In the coming weeks, Rahr said, she will make a request to the governor for additional funding so the training commission can run more academy classes next year.

“I am currently reaching out to members of the House and the Senate … to share information on how dire the situation is,” she said. “I just hope that local agencies can hang tough for the next couple months.”

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Columbian Breaking News Reporter