County Drops ‘Super Academy’ Plans
February 16, 2007 – 6:55 am
By Reed Williams, Roanoke Times – February 16, 2007
Roanoke County sheriff’s deputies will train in the county’s new public safety building on Cove Road, said Administrator Elmer Hodge.
For Roanoke County officials, the plan all along was to build a $5 million “super academy” to train the county’s police officers and sheriff’s deputies.
They hoped to find a legal way for the Roanoke County Sheriff’s Office to leave the Cardinal Criminal Justice Academy in Salem, but Cardinal refused to let the sheriff’s office go.
After months of argument between county officials and Cardinal representatives, talk of possible lawsuits and an attempt to have state lawmakers settle their dispute, the two sides finally reached an agreement for the sheriff’s office to withdraw.
Yet county officials now say they have taken the plan for the super academy off the table, partly because the Roanoke Police Department did not wish to participate. The city, which shares its police academy with the Roanoke County Police Department, plans to build its own new $5.5 million academy.
County Administrator Elmer Hodge, who previously had vowed to consider every option to make the super academy a reality, now says there is plenty of room for county police and sheriff’s deputies to train at the county’s new public safety building on Cove Road. County police and the county’s fire and rescue department moved into the facility last month.
“It’s going to give us the flexibility to train based on need,” said Roanoke County Sheriff Gerald Holt.
Holt has said that Cardinal’s offerings did not meet his deputies’ training needs, and he expressed hope that a county academy would enable his office to pursue more advanced training.
Sheriff Holt’s comments are “simply unfounded rhetoric.”
Cardinal director Rich Schumaker disagrees that the academy cannot meet Holt’s needs, calling the sheriff’s comments “simply unfounded rhetoric.”
“Our staff and cadre of instructors are among the finest in the state,” Schumaker wrote in an e-mail Thursday. “In addition, by any objective measure, Cardinal is also one of the best managed criminal justice training academies in the state.”
Cardinal officials had resisted the withdrawal of the sheriff’s office, with its roughly 110 sheriff’s deputies, because the tuitions of the academy’s other members likely would have to be raised. Under state law, the sheriff’s office needed a two-thirds vote of the academy’s governing council to pull out.
The council voted overwhelmingly against the idea in October, but the two sides reached an agreement last week to let the sheriff’s office leave.
Under the agreement, the sheriff’s office must pay the academy $45,000 per year for the next five years to cover the amount of tuition and state funding Cardinal will miss out on with the sheriff’s office out of the picture.
The Roanoke County Board of Supervisors ratified the agreement Tuesday, and Cardinal’s governing council voted Thursday in favor of it.
But another big hurdle remains: a statewide moratorium against starting any new police academy.
Although the county no longer plans to build a new facility, county officials say, the moratorium prevents them from offering certified training at a new academy at the public safety building.
So Holt and Hodge were off to Richmond again Thursday, lobbying state legislators against the moratorium that exists in state budget language.
That matter is expected to be resolved when the state budget is approved. The General Assembly session is scheduled to end next week.
2 Responses to “County Drops ‘Super Academy’ Plans”
Where will these deputies get their entry level training and how much will it cost? I guess with a 19 million dollar “Barnes and Noble” style library in the works and a jail that has increased from 72 million to 132 million dollars (86% increase) in nine months before they even broke ground, this is just one more hit in the pocket. I guess you could expect that from county officials who offer and approve a million dollar incentive package before finding out if it was needed to make the deal. (Gander Mountain). Don’t forget to vote this fall.
By Supercop313 on Feb 16, 2007
I watched the sheriff and chief on channel 3 public TV and I am having a problem understanding their glee. Let me get this right, they are going to pay one police academy $45,000 per year for 5 years ($225,000) to NOT train them. They are also going to quit a regional academy where instructors from a bunch of departments share the instructional duties and open one where their people will do it all. Who will be patrolling the roads and guarding the jail? If the police academy is anything like the fire academy, they will be spending another $100,000 per class in personnel costs just to field the instructors for a basic class, not to mention the equipment costs. All I have to say is I am glad I don’t live in the county. No wonder their taxes are climbing. This is nuts anyway you look at it.
By Jerry on Mar 1, 2007