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What's New?

UPDATE November 18, 2021

From the Executive Director:

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

November 18, 2021:

  • The complaint reporting database: 
    • The POST Board approved the agency misconduct reporting requirements at the September meeting. They are as follows:
  1. All violations of the current Standards of Conduct set in Minn. Rules 6700.1600, and;
  2. Violations of mandatory policies. There are currently 18 mandated policies; some of which will not apply to every agency.
    1. Most of the mandatory policies have POST model policies that require an agency's policy to be “identical or substantially similar" to the model.
    2. Agencies are required to report violations of the AGENCY POLICY which they have adopted and will be able to indicate on the reporting fields whether or not they hold their officers to a higher (more restrictive) standard than the model policy.
    • User acceptance testing and agency user orientation sessions have been completed. Below is a link to the orientation session that was provided to agencies in person:
    • Ultimately, this orientation session, training videos and FAQs will be permanently posted on the POST website after “go-live"
    • “go-live" continues to be delayed as the vendor works to correct defects identified during test deployment.
  • General Updates:
    • After obtaining input from stakeholders and the Ensuring Police Excellence and Improving Community Relations Advisory Council, the Special Committee on the complaint process will meet one more time to finalize numerous changes to the complaint form (packet) as well as improving communication on the POST Website. After that, the updated packet will be brought before the full board for approval.
    • I have solicited proposals, including costs, from a private vendor and MNIT Enterprise using the Salesforce platform used by POST to build a public-facing interface that would allow the public to search for and obtain all public records on licensed Peace Officers, modeled after the Board of Nursing's interface. The next step will be to seek supplemental funding during the upcoming legislative session to cover the costs of this development.
    • I recently attended the Professional Peace Officer Education (PPOE) conference and presented a vision of how POST and our stakeholders in the pre-service education arena might implement not only recommendations of the IADLEST audit but also reform/update a PPOE system that has remained largely unchanged for decades. This was a very productive conference and POST will be initiating a number of actions to reach out to stakeholders to obtain more detailed data regarding changing expectations for pre-service education. There are numerous facets to pre-service education and this work will involve many partnerships within the MinnState system as well as in the profession itself, the primary customers for PPOE.
    • The Board's Advisory Committee on Rules continues to meet regularly working through the substantial update of POST Board rules. Recordings of these meetings, minutes and schedules for upcoming meetings can be accessed at the link below. 
  • Additional information about other upcoming Board and Committee meetings is always available at https://dps.mn.gov/entity/post/meetings/Pages/default.aspx

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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Evolving Training Standards for Mandatory Continuing Education

​From Assistant Executive Director Mike Meehan:

EVOLVING TRAINING STANDARDS

Old Standard

Since July 1st, 2018 all licensed peace officers in Minnesota have been required to complete at least 16 continuing education credits during their three-year licensing cycle in the following categories:

  • Crisis intervention and mental illness crisis training
  • Conflict management and mediation
  • Recognizing and valuing community diversity and cultural differences to include implicit bias training

The 16 continuing education credits could be spread out between the three categories in any ratio, with at least one credit in each category.

New Standard

Effective July 1st, 2021, the legislature has changed these training standards.  For officers renewing their license by June 30th, 2022, the training standard includes all the above requirements but clarifies the amount of credits in one category and adds an additional category:

  • A minimum of six (6) continuing education credits for crisis intervention and mental illness training
  • Four (4) continuing education credits in a new category, safer interactions between peace officers and persons with autism

Important: the new training standard did not increase the total amount of mandatory training credits; that amount remains at 16 credits total (now spread out among 4 categories instead of three).

Autism Training

At P.O.S.T., we are starting to receive inquiries regarding the new autism training. 

Officers renewing their license by June 30th, 2022 must have the four hours of autism training (as well as the six hours of CIT credits). 

It is possible for officers with access to the LMCIT PATROL on-line training to complete all four hours of the autism training prior to renewal by June 30th, 2022.  Here is the latest from the League:

“It is possible for an officer to obtain all four hours by taking the current 'Serving Those with Autism Spectrum Disorder' prior to December 1, 2021 and then taking the three new autism courses that will be released in December and early 2022."

Training must be P.O.S.T. Approved

Per the state legislature, training provided in these categories must be conducted by an approved entity.

The MN P.O.S.T Board maintains a list of approved training entities and courses, which is available via the link below.

https://dps.mn.gov/entity/post/continuing-education/Pages/mandated-training-approved-entities-sponsors.aspx​