Lawrence Police say a change in training for new officers will save the city money and free veterans to leave the classroom and stay on the streets.

For the first time in 26 years, the department has turned to an outside agency to train new hires: the Kansas Law Enforcement Training Center in Hutchinson.

“We’ve been very successful in putting what we feel are some of the finest officers in the state on the street for the citizens,” said Lawrence Police Lt. Kevin Harmon, who oversees training for the department. “This is a definite change, but we feel like we’ll still get a very good product in the end.”

The state-funded center in Hutchinson has trained officers of more than 400 Kansas law enforcement agencies for more than 30 years. Only a few larger agencies — such as Wichita, Johnson County police departments, the Kansas Highway Patrol and Lawrence — did their own training.

“We’ve always served the vast majority of agencies throughout the state,” said Ed Pavey, the center’s director. The center is operated by Kansas University.

Harmon said Lawrence offered far more training than the state center for many years, 22 weeks compared with eight weeks.

“We’ve always had, basically, twice as much training as the standard officer in most jurisdictions,” he said.

Changes

But in 2002 the state center revamped its curriculum, expanding the training to 14 weeks. And legislators decided to make the curriculum mandatory for all police officers in the state.

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Lawrence could have continued to do its own training, Harmon said. There were several factors in the decision to switch:

l The state picks up the entire tab of training in Hutchinson. But it subsidizes only a portion of costs by police departments that do their education in-house.

“The local agencies pay nothing, other than salaries,” Pavey said of officers training at his center.

Under the old state curriculum, Pavey said, the cost of training an officer was $5,000 apiece. The new curriculum will be more expensive.

Lawrence only recouped a few hundred dollars per officer in training costs from the state, Harmon said.

“The actual cost,” he said, “is quite a bit higher than that.”

l Lawrence’s in-house training made heavy use of veteran officers who took time away from their regular beats to educate the rookies.

“It’s a tremendous manpower draw to take people out of their patrol assignment or their detective assignment or administrative assignment to teach a class in our academy,” Harmon said. “So really the benefit for us is more officers on the street throughout this 14-week period when they’re in Hutchinson.”

l For efficiency’s sake, Lawrence police began training sessions only when a half-dozen or more jobs had been filled. That meant manpower could run low between fresh influxes of officers.

The state center begins new training sessions regularly, Harmon said, allowing Lawrence to fill its ranks more quickly.

“We can hire them,” Harmon said, “and send them on down.”

Extra education

The 13 Lawrence officers now training in Hutchinson will still get a dose of local education.

When they complete the state academy — where they’ll learn report writing, accident investigation, fingerprint techniques, weapons use and search-and-seizure laws — they’ll return to Lawrence.

Here, Harmon said, the new officers would spend another month in the classroom, learning further investigative techniques and “officer survival” skills.

And Lawrence officers continue to receive 40 hours of local training every year they’re with the department.

Harmon said officers would get good training in Hutchinson.

“They’ve got state-of-the-art facilities, they’ve got wonderful instructors that are professionals in the field that they instruct in, and they do it every day,” he said. “We feel comfortable the basic officer will be a very good product.”