Police academy leaders urge careful pension study; law-enforcement advisory board stops short of mandating statewide pursuit policy

Academy leaders testified to the Senate Committee on Government Operations on Feb. 26 about staffing, pension classification and pursuit-policy practice. Kenneth Hawkins, deputy director for the Vermont Criminal Justice Council and the academy, described long-standing retention and recruitment challenges and urged caution before changing staff retirement-group classification.

Hawkins said most academy staff are currently in 'group f' and that moving them wholesale to 'group c' would require many employees to give up previously accrued retirement credit; that prospect could lead to losses of experienced trainers. He described the academy as a small operation (14 full-time positions with two vacancies and roughly 98–100 adjunct volunteer instructors statewide) and warned that dividing staff into different retirement groups could be “untenable” for morale and operations. TC Ferpo, a training coordinator and domestic-violence response instructor at the academy, told the committee any pension change should include all full-time staff to avoid creating an internal hierarchy in a 16-person agency.

Committee members asked for a fiscal assessment. A senator reported the treasurer’s office advised an actuarial study would be required to calculate pension impacts, with a cost estimate discussed at about $60,000; members suggested appropriating funds for that study before advancing pension-group legislation. Hawkins and senators also discussed constitutional limits on mandatory retirement ages and the difference between group classifications; committee members asked staff and legislative counsel to draft changes and to return with an updated bill.

Separately, Trevor Whitwell, representing the Vermont League of Cities and Towns and chair of the Law Enforcement Advisory Board (LEAB), told the committee LEAB considered but did not move to craft a single statewide model pursuit policy. Whitwell said LEAB membership is broad (including state police, municipal chiefs and sheriffs, prosecutors, defense representatives and others) and that members concluded a one-size-fits-all pursuit policy would not fit varying community expectations and operational contexts. He emphasized that VLCT maintains a library of model policies and that the central issue in problematic pursuits is often failure to follow existing policies rather than lack of policy.

The committee did not take a vote on pension-group legislation; members asked for a redraft and for funding to complete an actuarial study before proceeding.