A major national reserve law enforcement conference will be held this Fall at the Hillsborough County (FL) Sheriff's Office Training Center. This hallmark conference will be held over the first weekend of October, and will feature a major training event hosted by VLEOA; and, and the first Law Enforcement Reserve Executive Summit (LERES) hosted by CLER and VLEOA.
LERES is a standing committee of Reserve Program Executives and senior RLEOs that is focused on pressing national issues facing Reserve Country. The Chairman of LERES is Colonel Steven Sheffer, Director of the Florida Highway Patrol Auxilliary. Colonel Sheffer has established LERES as a forum for promoting policy initiatives and statutory actions that will improve reserve programs nationwide. Two significant issues that will be addressed at the Fall Summit will address death and disability benefits for RLEOs, and a credentialling process that will speed integration of RLEOs into new reserve programs should they move into new jurisdictions. Together, these issues directly impact RLEO recruiting and retention. Colonel Sheffer estimates that FHPA alone looses access to some 60 inbound RLEOs who annually relocate to Florida, but cannot resume their reserve careers because of credential-transfer barriers that are not confronted by full-time LEOs.
VLEOA will host a series of high-impact training events. These will be announced shortly, but promise to provide participants with access to state of the art equipment and systems that may not yet be accessible to their home agencies. This hands-on training will count as training for Florida law enforcement officers, and every attempt will be made to ensure that training credit is received by participants.
We will announce more particulars in the coming weeks. Plan to come to Tampa Florida to participate in this hallmark event.
