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POST outlines legislative bills to watch: education mandates, CLETS access and k‑9 policy among items
Summary
POST staff summarized legislation they are tracking for 2025, including bills that would change education requirements for peace officers (AB 992 / SB 385), clarify POST access to CLETS/federal criminal history (bill carried by Assemblymember Rodriguez), and other bills affecting training and programs.
Legislative liaison Megan Polis briefed the advisory committee on bills POST is tracking in the 2025 session and summarized staff responses to recommendations in the Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC) / RIPA (Racial and Identity Profiling Act) annual report.
Polis said POST is tracking roughly 70 bills that could affect training, certifications, or POST operations. Major items discussed included:
- AB 992 / SB 385 — Education requirement fixes related to earlier SB 89 work: AB 992 would allow multiple pathways to meet post education requirements (for example, an associate degree, a bachelor’s degree, two years military experience, two years of law enforcement experience from another state, a modern policing degree, or a professional policing certificate). SB 385 would similarly create options and extend timelines. POST staff said both bills are intended to address concerns about the original SB 89 deadline and to provide alternative pathways.
- AB 354 — A fix to allow POST access to state (CLETS) and related criminal-history data that DOJ flagged in a DOJ bulletin last August. Polis said POST is actively working with Assemblymember Michelle Rodriguez’s office and DOJ to secure language that would restore or clarify POST’s ability to receive criminal-history information necessary for background checks. Staff noted a simultaneous federal legislative effort could also address federal data access issues.
- AB 400 — K‑9 program policy alignment with POST k‑9 guidelines (statutory alignment with POST guidance).
- AB 1013 — Mandated behavioral health training for supervisors and below (still developing, likely to carry cost and delivery implications).
Polis also described POST’s response to RIPA report recommendations, including POST’s position that measuring training effectiveness at the officer behavior level is generally the employing agency’s responsibility, not POST’s, citing resource constraints.
Representatives from the California community colleges urged sensitivity to how education pathways are structured. They flagged AB 992’s 15‑unit certificate option as potentially problematic because federal financial‑aid and state apportionment rules typically require 18‑unit certificates for funding; community‑college presenters asked that bill authors consider 18 units or other pathways that preserve financial‑aid access.
POST staff said the CLETS access fix has had substantial attention and that Assemblymember Rodriguez (a former POST commissioner) has agreed to carry corrective legislation that could include an urgency clause to make it effective immediately upon enactment. The briefing was informational; the advisory committee asked clarifying questions but took no formal vote.
