Law enforcement officials decry Gibbons’ plan to link agencies

By Jeremy Twitchell

Friday, April 3, 2009 | midnight

Law enforcement administrators around Nevada are rallying against a proposal by Gov. Jim Gibbons that would combine the entity responsible for regulating law enforcement agencies in the state with one of the agencies it regulates.

A legislative subcommittee has agreed with the administrators and has recommended that the proposal be reversed.

The Nevada Peace Officers Standards and Training (POST) Commission is tasked with ensuring uniform testing and training procedures for law enforcement officers with agencies around the state. It also audits the agencies to make sure they are in compliance with established practices and procedures.

In an effort to trim costs, Gibbons proposed combining the POST Commission with the Nevada Department of Public Safety's Training Division.

Law enforcement officials, however, say the proposal would create a conflict of interest because the Department of Public Safety is one of the agencies POST audits.

Any cost savings achieved by combining the two entities would be minimal, said Frank Adams, executive director of the Nevada Sheriffs' and Chiefs' Association, which opposes the move. The conflict of interest the move would create would far outweigh any savings, he said.

"It's like putting the fox in the henhouse," Adams said.

The joint Senate Financial and Assembly Ways and Means subcommittee on public safety has agreed with the association, voting to repeal the order and referring it back to individual full committees for approval at a later date.

State Sen. Joyce Woodhouse, D-Henderson, who chairs the subcommittee, said legislators reached a consensus that there was no need to change the way POST operates.

"The reason for not combining was that the committee members feel POST, as a standalone agency, is doing an outstanding job," Woodhouse said in an e-mail. "It follows the proverbial 'If it isn't broken, we don't have to fix it.' All law enforcement was supportive of POST remaining as it is."

Adams said the state tried to operate POST from within the Department of Public Safety from 1995 to 1999, but state leaders determined it wasn't effective in that format and reconstituted it as a standalone agency.

He said he was concerned by the manner Gibbons handled the proposal.

"The biggest concern is that the governor did this without consulting any sheriffs or police chiefs — he just said, 'This is the way it is,'" Adams said.

Gibbons spokesman Dan Burns said the governor put forth the proposal as a logical way to save costs in light of the state's budget crisis.

"It was pretty simple," Burns said. "Both of the groups have functions that are specific to their groups, but also had functions that are very similar, so by combining them, we thought we could save a little bit of money. It's as simple as that."