Prior to the introduction of the proposed 2024 budget for the state of Michigan, the Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards (MOCLES) previously didn't specify any minimum requirements for in-service training.Image courtesy of MOCLES / Facebook.
The proposed 2024 budget for the state of Michigan is not only the largest in the history of the "Mitten State" but it is also the first to include stipulations that specific funds be set aside for mandated in-service training for all of the state's 17,000+ officers to maintain their police certification.
According to WSBT-TV News, the new spending bill under consideration includes nearly $500 million for public safety initiatives overall, with substantial portions of that " hire, train, and retain local cops, firefighters, and EMTs and upgrade public safety facilities and equipment."
In addition, the planned budget would allocate about $50 million for the State Police Training Academy to serve as a criminal justice training hub that will support realistic, multi-disciplinary training opportunities for law enforcement agencies across the state.
There would also be roughly $9 million to run a Michigan State Police Trooper Recruit School, with the hope of graduating an anticipated 50 new recruits.
The Money, the Mouth
Of particular interest to law enforcement professionals in the state, of course, is the specification that certain funds will go directly toward mandated training. This is almost surely the outcome of political pressure applied to elected leaders for increased police training in the aftermath of a series of high-profile use-of-force incidents over the past several years.
Protests erupted, of course, following the death of George Floyd in the neighboring state of Minnesota in 2020, but the subject of protesters' ire got a lot more close to home after the April 2022 shooting death of Patrick Lyoya during a traffic stop in Grand Rapids. The topic of law enforcement training was then thrust squarely before the governor and the legislative bodies in the Wolverine State.
So it was unsurprising that the summary presentation authored by the Michigan State Budget Office said that $18 million of ongoing in-service training for licensed law enforcement officers "builds on" the $20 million already included in Public Act 1 of 2023 and "focuses on supporting continuing education for law enforcement on an ongoing basis."
Virtually nobody in law enforcement will argue that "more training" is a bad thing, but just about everyone in the profession will correctly observe that more bad training certain is, so the value of this proposition will be shown in the quality of the training being required.
Interestingly, although officers in already had annual firearms proficiency exams, the Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards (MOCLES) previously didn't specify any minimum requirements for in-service training for things such as defensive tactics, for example. Certain agencies might mandate a few hours of annual DT training, but a substantial number of individual officers who wanted to get additional physical skills training in MOCLES-approved classes had to do so "on their own time and their own dime."
It's unlikely that the newly mandated training will include much—if any at all—time sweating it out in the matt room during DT training, as welcome as that might be to some officers. What's most likely is mandated training in topics like de-escalation tactics and crisis intervention communications.
Foreshadowing that likely outcome, MOCLES Executive Director Tim Bourgeois told a local public radio station that "Citizens certainly need to have confidence that law enforcement is enforcing the laws in a fair and equitable way, and in an appropriate way."
Bourgeois said further that the organization will "consult other law enforcement agencies and peer-reviewed literature to develop an effective training curriculum."
A Plethora of Platitudes
In announcing the new spending plan, Governor Gretchen Whitmer said that some of the public safety monies will go toward "evidence-based solutions to tackle the root causes of violence, including community violence intervention programming."
Other elements of the proposal direct funds toward new school safety programs and "implementing cross-sector approaches to prevent mass violence through partnerships between schools, public safety, mental health professionals, and communities."
Money will also be spent on reimbursement to local agencies for "evidence-based community programing for juvenile justice as identified by local units of government."
The new budget proposal will undergo a series of modifications—probably in the form of cuts—before it ultimately receives approval from the legislature and takes effect in the next financial year.
Any and all the finalized training standards must be presented to the state senate by the start of September.
