BUCKHANNON – The Buckhannon Police Department – one of only three city police departments in West Virginia accredited through the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies – will soon face a crucial test.

A national credentialing authority for public safety, the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement agencies, or CALEA, just wrapped its annual 2024 web assessment of the BPD’s day-to-day operations and management.

Next, CALEA officials will conduct a more involved, in-person, on-site assessment in March 2025, the results of which will determine whether the agency will retain its accreditation for the next four years, Buckhannon Police Chief Matt Gregory told My Buckhannon Friday.

Each year, CALEA officials conduct a web assessment to ensure credentialed agencies are adhering to the 184 public safety professional standards established by the commission.

This August marked the completion of the BPD’s Year 3 web assessment of its day-to-day operations and management before the key on-site assessment in 2025.

Gregory said the feedback was overall positive, and assessors had only one piece of feedback: Even non-sworn staff, like administrative assistants, must receive bias-based profile training just as sworn law enforcement officers do.

“The one suggestion I got in our review was to make a change to our bias-based profiling policy in regards to training,” he said. “In our old policy, we were just training our sworn officers, and they wanted us to train non-sworn staff as well, so we’ve made a change to that and have already implemented a response in terms of scheduling that training for our non-sworn staff to ensure not only initial but refresher training because that particular training is a time-sensitive standard where we do it every year.”

CALEA reviewed four ‘areas of interest,’ including communications, juvenile offenders/operations, agency cash management and K-9 Officer operations. It also evaluated 91 of the 184 CALEA standards and found the department to be in compliance with all but the non-sworn staff bias-based profile training.

Gregory shared part of this year’s assessor’s report.

The report says the police department, “establishes and maintains solid directives that build on other federal, state and local laws and/or constitutional requirements to which it must adhere.”

“Training in all areas was well-followed and is under constant review to ensure best practices are followed,” the report continues. “Direct supervision in all areas is appropriately assigned within the organization. Management typically rests at the command level to both maintain awareness and ensure agency goals are being met as [the department] carries out its mission consistent with community expectations.”

Gregory said although the BPD has “closed out” its Year 3 web assessment, more work is ahead – and soon.

“Year 4 is interesting because it’s a quick turnaround,” the police chief set. “Years 1, 2 and 3 are set in August, and they set that based on your award date – we were awarded in July, but the web assessment [for a second four-year accreditation term] has to occur within 40 days of the on-site assessment, and our on-site assessment is scheduled for March of 2025,” he said. “So that means our Year 4 web assessment will be in February of 2025, so it’s a quick turnaround.”

While the Year 4 web assessment is slated for Feb. 21-March 1, 2025, the BPD’s on-site evaluation is scheduled for the week beginning March 30.

In July 2021, the BPD made history by becoming only the second city agency at the time to receive full accreditation through CALEA, which brands itself as the “gold standard in public safety.”

The goal of the web assessments and on-site evaluation is to review 100 percent of the BPD’s files by 2025, when Gregory will appear before the Commission at its next conference in August 2025 in Little Rock, Arkansas.

“They will have reviewed all four web assessment reports and the on-site assessment and then they’ll ask me questions, and I’ll have to respond to findings in those reports, and then, at that point, they make the decision to reaccredit or not,” he said.

CALEA’s accreditation process emphasizes utilizing best practices, embracing community-oriented policing, displaying professionalism, increasing transparency and bolstering accountability within police departments.

“A big part of the process is just making continuous improvement, and I’ve come to really appreciate the wisdom behind that,” Gregory said. “It’s about the journey, not the destination – it’s not about the status or the certificate, but it’s just about constant review, evaluation and improvement and being committed to best practices.”

The Parkersburg and Charles Town police departments are also credentialed through CALEA.