Relating to in-service training credits for law-enforcement officers
Summary
HB2802 amends West Virginia’s law-enforcement training and certification statute to expand and clarify the duties of the law-enforcement training subcommittee. The bill focuses on in-service training standards for law-enforcement officers and supervisory personnel, and it adds a specific allowance for substitute in-service training credit hours when officers or certified instructors participate on-site in school safety programs authorized by law or by a law-enforcement agency.
The bill also continues and reinforces the subcommittee’s broader authority over academy standards, instructor certification, officer certification and decertification, disciplinary recordkeeping, and specialized training topics. Those topics include organized criminal enterprise investigations with anti-racial-profiling instruction, sexual assault investigations involving adult victims, child abuse and neglect reporting and investigation, and human trafficking investigations. The measure is effective 90 days after passage, on July 10, 2025.
Impact
HB2802 primarily affects West Virginia Code §30-29-3, which governs the duties of the law-enforcement training subcommittee. It does not create a new program so much as it modifies the training framework by authorizing the subcommittee to credit school safety program participation toward required in-service or supervisory training hours. It also leaves in place the subcommittee’s authority to set standards for academies, instructors, curricula, certification, and related reporting and discipline systems, thereby affecting law-enforcement officers, training academies, and agencies statewide.
Sentiment
The bill appears to have been broadly supported and noncontroversial. It passed the House 98-0 and the Senate 32-0, indicating unanimous approval in both chambers. The lack of recorded committee debate or dissent suggests the measure was viewed as a practical training adjustment rather than a contested policy change.
Contention
No significant opposition is reflected in the available record. The main policy choice in the bill is the substitution of training credit hours for officers and certified instructors who participate in school safety programs, which may have been intended to encourage such participation without increasing training burdens. Any potential concern would likely center on how the subcommittee defines and administers those substitute credits, but no formal contention or disagreement is shown in the votes or transcripts provided.