Oswego board approves full-time police training coordinator after shared-services split

The Village of Oswego board voted to hire a full-time police training coordinator in the 2025 budget after the United City of Yorkville ended a shared-services agreement and hired the village’s incumbent coordinator.

Chief Baston told the board the shared arrangement, approved in May 2023, provided 20 hours per week of coordinator time from each agency but had become insufficient for the village’s needs. “Yorkville has officially notified us that they are no longer, at the end of this year, going to do the shared service,” Baston said. He asked the board to authorize hiring in November so the new coordinator could overlap with the departing employee.

Baston estimated the November–December overlap would cost “a little over $19,500” and said the village will lose Yorkville’s 50% reimbursement moving forward once the shared-service ends.

Trustees pressed Baston on the coordinator’s duties and how the position supports compliance. Baston said the coordinator primarily handles logistics and record-keeping for mandatory certifications under the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board, coordinates internal instructors, tracks annual and multi‑year mandates and helps with CALEA accreditation. “We did about 9,000 training hours,” Baston said, and later cited department activity of “about 26,000 plus calls for service” and “11 use of forces,” which he described as roughly 0.04 percent of calls.

Supporters framed the hire as necessary for maintaining training standards and accreditation. A trustee thanked staff for pressing training and compliance matters and said it was important to put funding behind those priorities.

By roll call the board approved adding the full-time training coordinator to the 2025 budget and authorized hiring to allow the planned overlap; specific personnel details and the full-year budget impact beyond the stated overlap cost were not specified in the meeting record.