Wausau Police Department Leverages Vector’s Police Training Management System to Maximize In-Person Training Hours

The Challenge

Wausau Police Department is located in the heart of Wisconsin at the intersection of two major transportation systems and serves a community of approximately 40,000 citizens. Unlike many law enforcement agencies in the U.S. right now, Wausau Police Department is fully staffed at 80 sworn. However, that doesn’t mean that the Department isn’t challenged for time in accomplishing all that falls within their realm of responsibility. Wausau Police Department personnel, including an Administrative Captain, a Patrol Captain, other instructors, and the Office Manager spend a lot of time documenting all their officer and instructor training in multiple systems.

Prior to 2022, all the training requests, tracking, and reporting was managed on paper and spreadsheets. The manual paper-based processes were not only time consuming, but also not what today’s generation of officers expect. They have grown up in the digital era with “click for what you need” processes. “Today’s officers need to know a lot more than officers did 20 years ago,” said the Administrative Captain. “There is a lot of specialized training today and a wide variety of training sources which further complicates the process of tracking and documenting everything.”

The Choice

When researching training management technology options, the Captain who developed the Wausau Police Department’s training program spoke with their local fire department to learn what they were using to manage their training. After discovering how the fire department was using Vector LMS training management system and understanding how they could also leverage it, the Captain decided to incorporate the technology to help manage training across their multiple personnel roles and training sources.

Wisconsin law enforcement officers are also required to complete 24 hours of annual training and report it to the Wisconsin Law Enforcement Standards Board (LESB) by June 30th of each year. Wausau Police Department leverages a LESB Credential in Vector’s police training management system to track each officer’s progress and easily ensure no one falls out of compliance. Credentials in Vector’s training management system serve as training templates and can be set up and easily updated each year for multiple roles across a department, whether in-service mandates, instructor training, or other specialized licenses and/or certifications that officers pursue.

Wausau Police Department is also leveraging the system’s Bulletin Board to post announcements and provide easy access to resources, as well as the File Center to house their repository of training videos, training request forms, and other resources.

The Change

“Vector’s LMS training management system has helped make training more interactive for officers who receive pre-learning ahead of their briefing discussions,” said the Patrol Captain. “They are able to spend more time with their in-person and hands-on training.”

In addition to leveraging pre-learning to maximize in-person training time and reduce paper processes, the Administrative Captain is working with Vector to streamline the process of tracking officer training and the reporting process to LESB. With a new technology solution called AgencyConnect, the next advancement in time savings will be eliminating the need to enter training information into multiple systems and add more automation to streamline all the processes that are involved in officer training—from requests to tracking to reporting.