Jul 2, 2015 3 min read

For years, municipal police officers in Pennsylvania were required to successfully complete training updates each year in order to maintain their certification.

So when the state made changes to mandatory training, or continuing law enforcement education, municipal departments were saddled with finding accredited courses to cover the three credit hours required. Canonsburg police found an answer in PoliceOne.com, an online program they were using for additional training for about a year that will save money and ease strain on manpower.

When police Chief Al Coghill was the department’s detective, he recommended the online program to then-Chief R.T. Bell.

“When I was at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., I learned about PoliceOne.com,” Coghill said. “I started looking at the cost and saw it as a way to fill the gap in training.”

“Given our manpower, we may be only able to send two or three officers to a training,” he added. “But with this, the officers have access 24/7 and the courses can be selected to suit the officer’s needs. We can even use the firearm safety refresher before we go out on the range.”

Given the 12-hour shifts the officers answering calls work, getting them to another three hours of training was a scheduling nightmare, Coghill said. In addition to paying the officer’s salary, there are also costs for travel and meal expenses, Sgt. Loren Cochran added.

Training online was a possible answer to fill the gap in the state-mandated requirements, but no programs were approved by the state police and the Municipal Police Officers’ Education and Training Commission. Cochran worked with both agencies to change all that.

Cochran contacted the director of training for MPOETC about using the online program. The director of PoliceOne provided biographies of the instructors and information about the different programs.

“We were able to get the approval for this to count as the three credits each officer needed for their continuing education,” Cochran said. “We are the first department in the state to use an online vendor.”

The approved course is in improving communication skills.

“The officer can log in at the start of the shift, or if they prefer, log on from home,” Cochran said. “The officer can go through the program. If he needs to answer a call, he just logs off and when he comes back can log back on and continue where he left off. Once all four parts are completed, the officer can print out a certificate that the coursework has been finished.”

Mayor David Rhome said doing the training in-house saves money for Canonsburg and other departments across the state. He said the online training will save the borough about $6,800 a year.

“There are a lot of police departments that need this training,” Rhome said. “With 23,000 certified local police officers in the state, the savings could be significant for municipalities.”

Coghill said while there is still a place for training in the classroom, the online program fills in the gaps that have existed for years.

“You can go to college online, why not training?” Coghill said. “The course material includes case law in the various states. There is also training in crisis management and security measures.”