Agenda Packets - 2007/07/23 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Item No:8F Meeting Date: July 23, 2007 Type of Business: Council Business Administrator Review____ City of Mounds View Staff Report To: Honorable Mayor and City Council From: Kurt Ulrich, City Administrator Item Title/Subject: Our of State Training Approval for Police Chief Date of Report: 7-23-07 Background Chief Mike Sommer is required to complete 30 hours of continuing education this year to maintain his polygraph examiner certification. It is a recommended practice to maintain our staff’s level of expertise and professional certifications. Unfortunately, there is no local continuing polygraph education training available, which makes this training more expensive due to the necessity to travel. Police Chief Mike Sommer is a certified polygraph examiner and has been so for the past 16 years. Chief Sommer is one of only about 5 certified law enforcement polygraph examiners within the state of Minnesota and he is the only polygraph examiner in Minnesota to have received his original training from the instructor who is the founder and former director of the Central Intelligence Agency Polygraph Section. Chief Sommer serves as the Minnesota representative to the American Association of Police Polygraphists. Discussion Having a polygraph examiner on staff has been beneficial on many investigations in the department; most recently in June, Chief Sommer conducted a polygraph on a Mounds View case involving a sexual assault. Chief Sommer regularly attended training on a yearly basis in his previous position at Anoka County. He is now in need of obtaining a minimum of 30 hours of American Polygraph Association approved continuing education in order to maintain his certification. The American Polygraph Association holds it only annual seminar this year in New Orleans from August 19-24, 2007. The cost for the seminar is $300 if prepaid by August 10th plus the cost of hotel (approx. $99/night), travel (approx. $400) and authorized per Diem for the seminar. Other options for obtaining the required training are through the Behavioral Measures Institute in Arlington Texas from September 24-28, 2007 at a cost of $550 plus hotel and travel, or through the Backster Polygraph School in San Diego, California at a cost of $595 from November 3-7, 2007. The police department training budget is funded adequately to cover this training this year.