UPDATE: Police Win Battle Over Training Staff Cuts

CREST HAVEN — After an intensive lobbying effort statewide, police in New Jersey won their battle May 16 with Gov. Jon Corzine and put a halt to a plan to gut staff from the Police Services Section of the New Jersey Police Training Commission (PTC).
Gary Schaeffer, Cape May County Police Academy director and president of the Police Academy Director’s Association of New Jersey, told the Herald he received a phone call from First Assistant Attorney General John Vazquez who informed him the controversial plan to cut all but one administrator from the commission’s police services section staff had been reconsidered.
“He called this afternoon and informed me the entire staff will not be laid off,” said Schaeffer. “Now he wants to meet with us to find out what can do to help share ideas.”
“This is a real positive thing,” said Schaeffer.
The plan was to cut five and retain one staff person in the section. The section monitors and keeps track of a myriad of issues relating to police training statewide.
Freeholders passed a resolution May 14 opposing the governor’s plan, and at that time, Schaeffer told them he hoped it would pave the way for other counties throughout the state. Meanwhile, the lobbying efforts for the last three weeks, by association members, and members of the New Jersey Fraternal Order of Police and the Police Benevolent Association seem to have paid off.
Schaeffer, in an April 18 letter had asked Corzine on behalf of the association to reconsider the proposed cuts. He said if the plan went through, a staff consisting of six persons plus one administrator would have been reduced to only one administrator.
“This action is devastating to law enforcement and correctional officer training and is not acceptable,” the April 18 letter stated.
“This action will take police training back 30 years,” he told freeholders May 14.
Schaeffer said there are approximately 8,000 instructors to monitor throughout the state and that in 2006, the last year statistics were available, 5,244 students were enrolled in courses.
“This is all done with the six persons and one administrator staff,” he said.
The staff is divided into two parts, with one staff member and one field rep each assigned to handle all the workload and inspections required. One additional staff member handles appeals, litigation, waivers of training, standards, etc. for the police training commission meetings as well as other functions. There is one data entry clerk.
“This in itself is minimum staffing,” said Schaeffer.
Schaeffer’s letter detailed the tasks staff on the commission handle on a routine basis, which include processing and recording new recruits, handling failures and dismissals, handling graduation certificates and processing, maintaining certification of thousands of instructors, handling litigation on appeals and waivers, processing PTC work, inspecting academies for compliance, and authorizing police and correction academies to proceed with classes.
The move would reportedly have saved the state $345,000, but Schaeffer and other police, including the FOP who also wrote a letter to Corzine, say the decision was made with no knowledge of its impact on staffing or the work of the commission, and cites a statement by the Office of Management and Budget to that effect.
The Police Training Commission was created as an independent entity in 1961. In 1986, it became part of the state Department of Law and Pubic Safety.
Contact Avedissian at (609) 886-8600 Ext 27 or at: savedissian@cmcherald.com.