Denver Post

$1 million annually to boost police training across state
By John Ingold
Denver Post Staff Writer

Friday, July 25, 2003 - State officials will begin meeting with law enforcement agencies across the state to decide how to spend about $1 million a year the state legislature recently set aside for police training.

In May, Gov. Bill Owens signed into law a bill that puts a 25-cent fee on each motor vehicle registered in Colorado.

That money, about $1 million a year, goes to the Peace Officer Standards and Training Board, which will devote it to improving police training.

At a news conference Thursday, Colorado Attorney General Ken Salazar said the state ranks near the bottom in money for police training. The text of the bill says the state has not provided funding for law enforcement training since 1992.

"We have an opportunity to address police officer training in a way we have never had before," Salazar said.

In particular, Salazar said the law should give much-needed training dollars to small police departments. Of the state's 324 agencies, more than 200 of those are in rural areas and have fewer than 15 officers, he said.

"Some of our larger municipalities and cities have been able to provide some training to their officers while it was very, very hard for officers in some of our smaller jurisdictions to receive any training," said Sen. Peggy Reeves, D-Fort Collins, one of the bill's sponsors.

But Salazar said the training board has not decided how to divide the money or conduct training. The state has hired former Douglas County sheriff Steve Zotos to survey the state's law enforcement agencies to determine their training needs, Salazar said.

A preliminary survey turned up nearly 30 areas where departments said they needed more training. One of those is dealing with the handicapped and people with special needs. Also on the list is training in homeland security and terrorism, stress management, use of force and in handling mobile methamphetamine labs.

Over the next two months, Salazar and members of the training board will hold 11 forums across the state to meet with agencies and discuss more specifically how they would like to see the money spent.

Rep. Gayle Berry, R-Grand Junction, another of the bill's sponsors, said the money is crucial because police officers are facing a growing variety of challenges and rising public expectations.

Salazar acknowledged that, with all the training topics being discussed, the money won't go nearly far enough.

"In the end, this is a small amount of money," he said. "I know you think, '$1 million, that's a lot.' But when you're talking about the training needs of 14,000 men and women, it's not a lot of money."