Committee tables bill creating law‑enforcement retention council and officer wellness training
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Summary
LD 1980 would create a Law Enforcement Retention Advisory Council, require wellness training and a wellness coordinator at the Criminal Justice Academy, and change death‑certificate reporting for first responders. The committee agreed to table the measure for further language and cost/implementation discussion.
The committee took up LD 1980, a committee bill aimed at addressing law‑enforcement recruitment, retention and wellness.
Will, the committee analyst, said the bill would establish an advisory council empowered to make recommendations to the commissioner of public safety, require death certificates to note whether the decedent had been a first responder, add a block of evidence‑based officer‑wellness instruction to in‑service or academy training, and fund a wellness coordinator at the Criminal Justice Academy.
Stakeholders underlined competing drafting choices: Paul Gaspar, executive director of the Maine Association of Police and a stakeholder in the bill’s development, framed the change as a partnership with the academy and recommended a touch‑point training within three to five years after academy graduation. Sergeant Ryan Close, who has led peer‑support work, said delivering wellness training after officers have field experience increases its effectiveness. Lincoln Ryder, director of the Criminal Justice Academy, told the committee the proposed wellness coordinator role would help create curriculum and deliver training regionally or online and that the academy could implement many elements but that statutory direction would clarify priorities and sustain efforts across administrations.
The committee discussed whether training should be mandatory, whether it should occur in the academy or via in‑service regional delivery, and how prescriptive statutory language should be about hours or format. Questions about membership terms for the advisory council and whether corrections and dispatch should be included also were raised.
After discussion the committee voted to table LD 1980 to allow staff and stakeholders to produce clearer statutory language on timing, curriculum length, distribution method and advisory‑council membership.
Next steps: staff will draft language options (academy/ in‑service timing, training length, advisory‑council appointments and reporting) for review before a subsequent work session.