At the start of the month, the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board voted not to certify the Police Training Institute’s April Basic Law Enforcement class. As a result, the Police Training Institute, or PTI, can no longer offer its most basic training class. According to an email from Urbana Police Chief Pat Connolly, the PTI is no longer certified to offer its advanced courses either.

In a letter to affected police stations, the institute’s interim director Michael Schlosser said this is an “unfortunate outcome” because there had been renewed discussions between the board and University in the weeks leading up to the meeting. The discussions aimed to create an agreement that would allow the institute to continue offering its courses.

“It was a shock for me to learn at the board meeting that these discussions were not going to continue,” Schlosser said in the letter.

Schlosser said he was unable to provide further comment.

Urbana Mayor Laurel Prussing is a residing member on the board. Prussing said she believes the decision derived from board director Kevin McClain, who, she said, has a vested interest in closing the PTI so that he can play a leadership role in building a new institute.

In 2010, amidst the budget crisis, the institute was set to close in order to cut costs. Beyond economics, the University’s reasoning was that it was not part of the basic mission of the school. Since then, the decision was put on hold when legislators crafted an amendment to the original bill that established the institute. The amendment would create a source of funding for the institute — a $25 fee leveled against those convicted of misdemeanors and felonies — and would also take the responsibility of certification off the board and transfer it to the University.

Prussing said immediately after the board discovered that the University wanted to close the PTI, it began to look into opening a new academy at Western Illinois University, an effort that she said McClain had hoped to spearhead. Western Illinois ultimately did not want to go forward with this plan if the PTI was going to remain open.

She said everybody, including University administration and state legislators, was “led along” and had the “rug yanked from under them at the last minute” when the board voted in March to stop certifying training starting in April.

She added that the high participation rates in courses are proof that many police stations recognize the institute as being valuable.

“Even after the University had signed up 55 recruits for the April BLE course, at the March meeting, this Board voted not to certify PTI, which is sort of saying its education is not adequate,” Prussing said. “Of course their education is adequate. So all the cities that sent these recruits are left in the lurch to try and find other training, even though they sent their recruits here because they appreciate PTI’s training.”

Alluding to McClain supporting the board decision, Prussing called the action “a political move (where) somebody is trying to build their empire at the expense of all the cities and communities that rely on the police training institute, which pioneered police training in Illinois.”

Between the years of 2005 and 2010, the PTI was training over 40 percent of all police recruits statewide. Every other police training academy’s share of statewide training was going down, but the University’s academy share was going up.

Robin Kaler, University spokeswoman, said the future is uncertain because it is difficult to run this training institute without its most basic course. She added that the institute is very thankful for the state legislators who are working to resolve the issue.

Board members did not reply to repeated calls from The Daily Illini.