Verification by the team that the agency’s Public Safety Communications Center meets the Commission’s state of the art standards is part of a voluntary process to gain re-accreditation - a highly prized recognition of communications professional excellence. The sheriff’s office strategic plan incorporates this objective under the goal of “ensuring agency and individual accountability by effective and efficient use of personnel, equipment and technology”.

 

The agency’s Public Safety Communications Center originally received accredited status in November 2002 and re-accredited status in 2005, 2008, 2011, 2014 and 2017, and must comply with more than 200 standards to maintain re-accredited status. The assessment team is composed of law enforcement and public safety communications practitioners from similar, but out-of-state agencies. The assessors will interview individuals at the 911 Public Safety Communications Center and well as at the sheriff's office headquarters. The assessors are team leader William Bleyle and team member Denise Mantey.

 

As part of the on-site assessment, agency employees and members of the community are invited to offer comments by telephone by calling 941.702.3781 on Monday November 9, 2020, between the hours of 2:00 and 4:00 p.m. Comments will be taken by the assessment team. Telephone comments are limited to 10 minutes and must address the Communications Center’s ability to comply with CALEA’s standards. Citizens wishing to submit written comments about the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office Public Safety Communications Center’s ability to comply with the standards for re-accreditation may send them to the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement, Inc. (CALEA), 13585 Heathcote Blvd, Suite 320, Gainesville, Virginia, 20155.

 

Once the Commission’s assessors complete their review of the agency, they report back to the full Commission, which will then decide if the agency is to be granted re-accredited status. Re-accreditation occurs every four years, during which time the agency must submit annual reports attesting continued compliance with those standards under which it was initially accredited.