The Ohio Senate’s budget plan calls for a five-fold increase in the number of continuing training hours each law enforcement officer in the state must take, as well as a state database to track officer-involved shootings.
But local governments will be the ones on the hook for the $17 million price tag during the next two years. The money will be diverted from the local government fund, a pool of money regularly given by the state to the 600 or so communities with a municipal income tax.
The Senate’s budget plan, released earlier this week, would require every full-time law enforcement officer in Ohio to take at least 11 hours of continuing training in 2016 and at least 20 hours in 2017.
Currently, Ohio requires the nearly 34,000 law enforcement officers in the state to take four hours of advanced training per year. But in the wake of a number of high-profile, police-involved deaths of black people in Ohio and around the country, a state task force in April recommended requiring at least 40 hours of annual training per officer.
The Senate’s budget sets aside $5 million in 2016 and $10 million in 2017 to reimburse law enforcement agencies for the training, though larger departments would have to shoulder a portion of the cost.
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