Illinois Association of Law Enforcement Executives

                 P.O. Box 355

                LaGrange, Illinois 60525

               630-762-0527 - 708-354-9223 (Fax)

             progressivechiefs@yahoo.com

            April 2011

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New police group helping amid tight financial times

A group of police veterans have formed an organization aimed at helping law enforcement agencies and local governments across Illinois with training and consulting services at a time when local budgets everywhere are experiencing deep financial woes.

The Illinois Association of Law Enforcement Executives is planning to offer police officer training, as well as offering free consulting - donations are accepted, of course - to local governments in Illinois.

"All the hot topic issues that are facing law enforcement are things that we want to address," said Worth Police Chief John Carpino, the group's vice president. "With all the police departments out there looking to reduce their budgets, we have free consultation available. That's a good thing."

The organization formed late last year and approved its bylaws earlier this month. Made up of current and retired top-ranking law enforcement officials, the group is already helping a couple of villages search for new police chiefs - a savings of up to $10,000, Carpino said.

LaGrange Park Police Chief Daniel McCollum, the organization's president, said the group also will help smaller agencies, for little to no cost, do promotional interviews, offer free crime prevention materials and provide guest speakers to groups or schools.

McCollum said the organization is helping a couple of communities, including Villa Park in DuPage County, with their searches for a new police chief.

"We are hoping to assist smaller communities, medium and large, with obtaining training as well as consulting," McCollum said. "They have limited budgets."

One of the association's other goals is to eventually offer services that could help police chiefs and deputy chiefs - especially those in smaller communities with limited budgets - meet their yearly 20-hour training requirement, Carpino said.

"We've been there, done that," Carpino said. "We know from experience what we're talking about, and we know what works and doesn't work."

The Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board oversees police training throughout the state.

Richard Fonck, executive director of the Tri-River Police Mobile Training Unit 16, said training offered by his unit primarily focuses on information for street-level officers.

"There is a need for that type of training for those kinds of executives," said Fonck, whose unit represents Will, Grundy and Kankakee counties. "They're filling a need that's out there, because 98 percent of our stuff is geared toward the officer on the street."

La Grange Park police chief to head up new law enforcement non-profit

A new non-profit agency composed of veteran law enforcement leaders hopes to bring much-needed training to smaller police departments throughout the state. The Illinois Association of Law Enforcement Executives, which is headquartered in La Grange, launched Dec. 13 with the aim of providing professional development to agencies in less wealthy areas of Illinois.

“It’s simply a matter of economics,” said La Grange Park Police Chief Dan McCollum, who serves as president of the new organization. “When you get down to central and southern Illinois, you have police chiefs who are making half of what our police officers are making.”

Factor in the fees required to belong to professional organizations and attend various workshops, he said, and it’s easy to see that some municipalities just don’t have the budget to properly train their law enforcement leaders.

“Even though agencies such as mine have had their training budgets curtailed, some of these agencies have no money budgeted for training,” said McCollum, who got his start serving as police chief in rural Villa Grove, Ill. “Any training they’ve received, they’ve got on their own.”

The new organization, which will offer low-cost training and no membership dues, has brought together a collection of veteran chiefs of police from around suburban Chicago. Charles Gruber hails from Addison and served as police chief in Elgin, South Barrington, Quincy and Shreveport, La. George Graves headed up police departments in Lombard, Downers Grove and Western Springs before retiring.

Both Gruber and Graves are past presidents of the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police; Graves also served as past president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the largest such group in the world. McCollum has served as past president of the DuPage County Chiefs of Police and the West Suburban Chiefs of Police.

Other police chiefs who have been elected to leadership positions include Roselle’s James Kruger, Worth’s John Carpino and Washington’s James Kuchenbecker.

McCollum said the leadership team—especially the retired veterans, who have a career’s worth of wisdom close at hand—views the new organization as a way to give back to smaller agencies that might have been marginalized because of the high cost to participate in professional development workshops and conferences.

“I’ve had just about every experience a chief can have, from being hired to being fired,” said Graves, a Western Springs resident. “Most of our police departments in Illinois are under 25 members. We still have a desire to provide professional service, and training is very important to accomplish that.”

In particular, the organization plans to focus on providing personnel and management guidance to police chiefs and aspiring chiefs around the state. Many law enforcement leaders enter the position full of passion to fight gangs and drugs—but this isn’t the best mindset for the job, McCollum said.

“They’re personnel managers, they’re not crime fighters anymore,” he said.

Moreover, many chiefs lack important bureaucratic skills necessary to do their job, such as how to handle a union grievance or how to handle a presentation to a village council. The organization plans to offer interactive role-play workshops so members can polish these vital skills.

An all-volunteer group, the organization has recruited friends and family to handle administrative duties. McCollum’s wife Nancy, for example, will handle the agency’s paperwork. In addition to workshops and classes, the group plans to solicit nominations for its inaugural Law Enforcement Executive of the Year award, to be given in June.

For more information about the organization, e-mail McCollum at progressivechiefs@yahoo.com.

—ByPatrick W. Rollens| Triblocal.com reporter