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POST examines ways to accelerate use of out‑of‑state officers for major events; staff warn regulatory and legal limits
Summary
POST staff presented a comparative review of West Coast academy curricula and outlined challenges to authorizing out‑of‑state officers for mutual aid and planned events (LA28). Staff said none of the reviewed states fully met California’s mandated training topics; discussion focused on regulatory options, mutual aid, and statutory hurdles (medical/psych/fingerprinting) that may require legislative change.
POST staff presented a comparative analysis of basic academy content from neighboring and western states as part of a study into whether out‑of‑state officers could be authorized to support California mutual‑aid needs for major planned events such as the LA28 Olympics.
Bureau Chief Carrie Holler said staff obtained training curricula from Washington, Oregon, Arizona and Nevada and compared them to California’s regular basic course (RBC) and legislatively mandated topics. Holler said all four states met minimum basic course hour requirements but none fully covered some California‑mandated items or hours: people‑with‑disabilities training (LD 37), first aid/CPR/AED content (LD 34), shotgun training and critical‑incident content (LD 26) were commonly missing or under‑provided.
Holler described the existing POST approach: the basic course waiver process is applicant‑specific and provides a 161‑hour requalification course to address California‑specific topics. POST staff framed several paths: (1) maintain current individual waiver processes; (2) create a regulatory pathway to permit group reciprocity for officers from similar academies; or (3) pursue legislative change to modify statutory requirements that currently restrict POST’s regulatory flexibility.
Committee members and county sheriffs cautioned against adding bureaucratic barriers in emergency mutual‑aid situations and urged careful tailoring — for example, a tiered approach distinguishing planned events (World Cup, Olympics) and immediate emergencies where speed is essential. Executive Director Manny Alvarez said some government‑code prerequisites (medical exams, psych evaluations, fingerprinting) currently limit POST’s ability to simply waive requirements for large numbers of officers, and that changing those requirements may require state‑level legal/regulatory changes.
What’s next: POST will continue research and stakeholder discussions about potential regulatory options to streamline the arrival of out‑of‑state officers for planned events while balancing statutory, training and liability constraints.
