Accredited — 05/19/08

May 16, 2008 03:39 pm

— When the Ashland Police Department began the long process of becoming accredited through the Kentucky Association of Chiefs of Police, we said the department would receive no direct financial benefits from that designation. But we were wrong.
As a direct result of being accredited, the city’s insurance carrier (the Kentucky League of Cities) has reduced the APD’s liability insurance premiums by $18,000 a year. And $18,000 is “comparable to the cost of the new police car,” said Don Petrella, the police captain who headed up the long accreditation process.
While the reduction in its insurance premium may be the department’s most tangible benefit of the accreditation, we suspect many in the department would consider the intensive self-examination that accreditation required and meeting the 150 primary standards and several hundred subsidiary standards to become accredited were the greatest benefits from the process. The APD is a better, more efficient department as a result of its successful effort to become accredited.
Some of the changes were physical, which are not always easy to make in a department spread out on several floors of an older building. Overall, Petrella said the changes resulting from the accreditation process make the department more professional and decrease its liability exposure.
Accreditation is not required and only about 75 of Kentucky’s 485 police department have earned the designation.
Michael Bischoff, executive director of the Kentucky Association of Chiefs of Police, commended the APD for meeting the standards in an aging building that houses both the police department and other city offices. To do so, he said the department had to develop innovative ways to adapt its current quarters.
Whether it is a college, high school, elementary school or police department, those who have gone through the tedious accreditation process usually agree that it is worth all the work. The APD is a better department because it took the time to meet the high standards needed to become accredited; the $18,000 reduction in its insurance premium is just an added benefit.