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Continuing Education Training Reimbursement 2021

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Continuing Education Training Reimbursement for Peace Officers and Part-time Peace Officers

MN RULES 6700.1800 REIMBURSEMENT TO LOCAL UNITS OF GOVERNMENT.

 

Subpart 1.  Annual reimbursement. 

Pursuant to Laws of Minnesota 1981, chapter 341, section 1, the board shall provide annual reimbursement to help defray the costs that have been incurred by local units of government in making continuing education available to the peace officers employed by them; provided, however, that the board's program of reimbursement is contingent upon the continued availability of funds designated for that purpose. 

Subp. 2.  Equal shares of funds. 

Equal shares of the available funds shall be disbursed to the local units for each peace officer who:
  1. has been employed by the same local unit during at least eight of the 12 months immediately preceding the local unit's application for reimbursement; and

  2. as had at least 16 hours of board-approved continuing education made available to the peace officer by the local unit during those 12 months.

Subp. 3.  Share for peace officers working part time. 

A share may be awarded when a peace officer has worked part-time for a local unit, but only one local unit shall be credited with a share for the same peace officer. 

Subp. 4.  Application forms. 

The board shall furnish application forms to each local unit. When applying for reimbursement, a local unit shall provide a list of the peace officers together with their license numbers for whom it is seeking reimbursement and affirm that it is eligible to be reimbursed in accordance with the board's rules. 

Subp. 5.  Signing of application forms. 

Application forms shall be signed by the chief law enforcement officer. The forms shall be submitted to the executive director within 30 days of the distribution of the forms, except that the executive director may grant an extension of time which shall not exceed ten days. 

Subp. 6.  Further information. 

The executive director may require such further information or documentation as may be necessary to substantiate a correction in the number of shares to be credited to an applicant for reimbursement. If the same peace officer is claimed by more than one applicant, the executive director shall determine which applicant is eligible for the share. This determination shall be made by documented statements of hours worked. Reimbursement funds shall be disbursed to the county, municipal, or township treasurer as soon as possible after approval of the applications and computation of the amount per share to be awarded to each applicant. 
Payments from the reimbursement fund are disbursed in August each year by electronic funds transfer.

​2021 Reimbursement Letter to CLEOs​
2021 Reimbursement Application​​


UPDATE July 1, 2021

From the Executive Director:

In an effort to be more transparent and keep interested stakeholders informed, I am sending out highlights/updates on POST Board activities as regularly as I can.

July 1, 2021:

  • The final budget and public safety bill(s) have passed the legislature and have been signed by the Governor. As a result, there will not be any layoffs at POST or any halt in operations. 
  • The complaint reporting database: 
    • Changes made in late 2020 to MN Stat. 626.845 and MN Stat. 626.8457 as part of policing reform efforts, required POST to create a database to receive complaints from CLEO's in real time, beginning July 1, 2021. 
    • POST contracted with Benchmark Analytics to create and deploy this database in a very short timeframe, around 6 months. POST decided early on in this process that the software and database should not “go live" until appropriate testing could take place with reasonable certainty that the end result would work as designed. 
    • Unfortunately, there have been numerous issues to overcome and the development of a fully functional database has proven more difficult than these tight timelines allowed. In an effort to ensure that CLEO's and POST are in compliance with the requirements of the new legislation, we have developed a temporary manual process for agencies to submit complaint data to POST. The manual process involves CLEO's logging into their existing portal and selecting a “2021 complaint report" option that will allow them to upload the completed complaint form that we have provided to them. 
    • While not ideal, this will allow both entities to meet their statutory obligations. When the database is up and running, POST staff will ensure that all data submitted manually to the board will be entered into the database on behalf of the agency.
    • NOTE: The POST Board's authority to impose discipline on licensed peace officers remains limited to the existing Standards of Conduct in Minn. Rules 6700.1600.  The expansion of this data collection to include individual violations of mandated policies is to gather data that will inform the POST Board and the Ensuring Police Excellence and Improving Community Relations Advisory Council as they make decisions regarding peace officer licensing, education, and policies.
  • List of approved trainers and courses for mandated CE training: 
    • The same reform legislation of 2020 required that POST create a list of approved providers and courses for agencies to reference and send their officers to in order to complete mandated training. While there was no specific timeframe for completing this list AND we will be working on the actual interactive database in the second half of 2021, we have posted the list of approved providers and courses on our website. It can be reached through this link: 
    • This will allow agencies plenty of time to send officers to the proper courses and providers before the next renewal cycle. 

Please do not hesitate to reach out to me if you have any questions about this information.

 

Erik Misselt

Executive Director

Minnesota Board of Peace Officer Standards and Training​

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