The Advanced Certificate Audit
Officer Terrence Boyd has eight years of service and currently holds Georgia POST's Intermediate career-development certificate. He is assembling an application for the Advanced certificate and lists 260 training hours: 120 hours of POST-approved in-service, 40 hours from a POST-certified general instructor course, 30 hours from a two-week FBI-LEEDA supervisory leadership course that was not submitted to POST, 20 hours from a college criminal-justice course, and 50 hours that are duplicate entries for courses already counted (the same two 25-hour courses taken twice and listed twice). He also has an associate degree. The agency's training coordinator says to 'send everything; POST just adds it up.' Boyd asks you to review the packet before submission and to tell him whether he should wait for the next academy cycle to add hours.
1. Audit Boyd's 260 hours. Which entries are defensible, and what total should he claim?
Read the worked answer
Audit the 260 down to a defensible number before anything is submitted.
- 120 in-service hours: countable if each course has a POST approval number and is not duplicated elsewhere.
- 40 instructor course hours: countable if the course was POST-certified and the certificate is attached.
- 30 FBI-LEEDA hours: not countable as submitted. It is a reputable course, but POST counts approved training. He can ask whether POST will approve it, but approval before delivery is the normal route.
- 20 college hours: countable only if the career-development matrix accepts them or POST approved the course. Do not assume a criminal-justice course counts.
- 50 duplicate hours: never countable. The same course counted twice inflates the total and, if submitted knowingly, looks like misrepresentation.
Defensible total as the packet stands: 160 hours, with a possible 180 if the college course qualifies. That is far below the 260 claimed.
2. What should Boyd do about the non-approved courses, and should he wait for the next academy cycle?
Read the worked answer
Correct the packet and build the missing hours deliberately.
- Remove the 50 duplicate entries and mark the FBI-LEEDA and college courses as 'approval pending' or omit them. Attach approval numbers and certificates for the 160 defensible hours.
- Ask POST's career-development staff in writing which categories and hour minimums the Advanced certificate currently requires, and whether any of the non-approved courses can be approved. Keep the reply with the application.
- If the audit leaves him short, take additional POST-approved courses-supervision, instructor development, specialty courses-rather than waiting for an academy cycle. Many are available online or at regional sites.
- Do not let the training coordinator 'send everything.' An application with inflated hours can be denied and can damage his credibility for later applications.
Career-development certificates are voluntary, but the documentation standards are not optional. The correct answer is to submit fewer hours that are verifiable than more hours that are not.
3. The duplicates were created by an agency clerk, not by Boyd. Does that change the analysis?
Read the worked answer
It changes blame, not the count.
The applicant signs and submits the application, so Boyd owns the accuracy of what he sends. But the clerk's error is an agency records problem worth fixing for everyone:
- Ask the clerk to identify how the duplicate entries were created-for example, the same course entered once from a roster and once from a certificate. Correct the source file so the next officer's transcript is accurate.
- Keep a short written explanation in the file only if POST asks about a discrepancy; do not volunteer a narrative that draws attention to an error that can simply be corrected.
- Notify the training coordinator that 'send everything' is contrary to the documentation standard and can create liability for the agency's training records.
If the duplicates were an honest clerical error, the corrected total is still 160 defensible hours. If Boyd knowingly listed the same courses twice, that is a candor issue and he should not submit until he has rebuilt the packet from source documents.