LONDON, Ohio — The Ohio Peace Officer Training Commission held its final regularly scheduled meeting of the year Tuesday, its last under Attorney General Andy Wilson, re-electing its longtime chairman and warning that 445 law enforcement agencies have yet to report this year’s required training for 6,905 officers.
Those officers have until Dec. 31. After that, state rules strip them of the authority to carry a gun or do police work until the paperwork is in.
Wilson, who was appointed in June to finish the term of former Attorney General Dave Yost, leaves office Jan. 11. The commission does not meet again until Feb. 9.
Members voted without opposition to keep Fayette County Sheriff Vernon Stanforth as chair for 2027. Stanforth has chaired the commission since 2005, when Bob Taft was governor, a run of 21 years.
“Congratulations, sheriff,” said Col. Charles Jones, superintendent of the State Highway Patrol, who was kept on as vice chair.
The commission also set its 2027 meetings for Feb. 9, May 11, Aug. 10 and Nov. 9.
What the commission does
The commission sets the minimum training standards for Ohio’s roughly 33,000 peace officers, from the basic academy through the continuing training officers must complete each year. It also oversees training for corrections officers, private security, bailiffs and police dogs, and directs the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy in London.
It has 10 seats, filled by the governor with Senate consent for three-year terms: two sheriffs, two police chiefs, a member of the public, and representatives of the FBI, the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the State Highway Patrol, the Department of Education and a law enforcement fraternal organization. The commission sits within the attorney general’s office.
The year-end deadline
Every peace officer and trooper in Ohio must complete 24 hours of continuing professional training, known as CPT, in 2026. Eight of those hours cover topics the commission requires, including legal updates, communications, firearms and two hours of subject control. Agencies choose the other 16.
Agencies must log those hours with the state by Dec. 31. As of Tuesday, 445 had not, leaving 6,905 officers unaccounted for. Notices have gone out, and a final notice will be sent Dec. 2.
An officer who misses the deadline goes into what the state calls cease function status on Jan. 1. Under the Ohio Administrative Code, that officer must immediately stop carrying a firearm and stop performing the duties of a peace officer until proof of compliance is filed and verified, a review the academy says can take several days. Working anyway can expose an officer to civil or criminal liability.
Agencies that need more time for an officer must request an extension by Dec. 15.
“Just report it. It really is that simple,” the chair of the commission’s CPT committee told members.
Staff said they have approved 1,899 CPT course applications so far.
Wilson: ‘We are failing the men and women’
Wilson joined by video from a gas station parking lot, having pulled off the highway to turn on his camera. “Phones down. It’s the law,” he said. He was in between meetings as Ohio’s top cop.
He used his time to say that the paperwork deadline is the smaller problem. The larger one, he said, is that Ohio requires officers to requalify with a firearm every year but sets no continuing standard for the skill they use far more often: putting hands on a person who is resisting.
“Every time you arrest somebody, you have to put your hands on them,” Wilson said. “And yet we have no mandates, we have no qualifications.”
It is a subject Wilson wears. The former Clark County prosecutor and Ohio National Guard veteran is devoted to physical fitness and has been seen running alongside cadets at police academies and the State Highway Patrol academy. As public safety director he made the case for jiu-jitsu training for officers. He has the lean build of a man who trains, and a jawline that looks like it could split a playing card edge-on at the firing range, sharper than a 9 mm round.
Wilson said body camera video he has reviewed, including a recent attack on Cincinnati officers at a Halloween event, convinced him that officers who are confident going hands-on draw fewer force complaints, hurt fewer suspects and get hurt less themselves. They are also slower to reach for a Taser or a gun, he said.
“As a profession, we are failing the men and women that we are asking to go out and put themselves in harm’s way,” Wilson said. “Ultimately, we’re failing the citizens that we protect.”
He said he has asked academy staff to draft what a requirement would look like, covering lawful use of force, defensive tactics, less-lethal tools and firearms.
“Short of mandating it, it’s just never going to get the attention that it needs,” he said.
Stanforth reminded Wilson that the commission’s authority stops at the floor. “We can only establish minimum standards,” he said, while encouraging agencies to go beyond them.
Robert Graziano, an academy director who helped draft the proposal, said the plan is a proficiency standard, not a pass-or-fail qualification that would pull an officer off the street. An officer who falls short would get a grace period to improve while still working.
“Let’s get that off the table right away so people can stop stressing,” Graziano said.
Jones raised the cost. “Some folks don’t have mats. Some folks don’t have the equipment that they need to be able to do this,” he said, noting that state money for continuing training was cut in the last budget.
Wilson pointed to agencies that borrow school wrestling rooms or partner with martial arts gyms.
Executive Director Jim Cyphers said a single statewide curriculum would also answer a complaint he hears from the field: officers from different agencies working against each other at the same arrest.
“It’s kind of like three dogs pulling a bone three different ways,” Cyphers said.
Several trainers in the audience urged the commission to start by requiring that some CPT hours be done in person. “Sitting in front of a computer is not, in fact, training. That’s education,” said a former academy subject control instructor.
The topics for 2027 are already set, Wilson said, so the coming year should go to certifying instructors and building the network to deliver the training in 2028.
Also Tuesday
The commission moved to expand mandatory crisis intervention training from one hour to six hours.
The academy launched a new online course catalog and CPT application for 2027. Agencies and officers can search academy and approved outside courses by calendar, list or statewide map. The catalog is available on the attorney general’s website.
An updated driving curriculum for basic academies takes effect in January after two delays, and Executive Director Jim Cyphers said he will not postpone it a third time. The academy said 219 driving instructors have completed the update, and 83 class openings remain before the end of the year for those who have not.
Members also said goodbye to Fairfield Township Police Chief Robert Chabali, who is retiring after more than four decades in law enforcement.
