The Pennyrile Area Development District Board of Director heard many presentations at Monday’s meeting, including from Madisonville Police Chief Steve Bryan about the Regional Law Enforcement Training Facility.
Madisonville Mayor Kevin Cotton says the facility would be a great asset to law enforcement agencies in western Kentucky, as right now, they’re having to send officers to training in Richmond.
Chief Bryan says they’ve been working on the idea of a regional facility for some time, and the City of Madisonville has allocated a potential building and land for the project, so he’s hopeful they’ll be able to get things in motion at the state level soon.
He says it costs the Madisonville Police Department roughly $1,000 to send an officer to training in Richmond for just a 40-hour class, and those costs quickly add up for each officer—so it would undoubtedly be at least a cost savings.
The building it would go into would require some remodeling, but Chief Bryan thinks that could take place fairly quickly and the 24,000 square foot facility would be very beneficial to local law enforcement. They’ve requested approximately $1.5 million for the Kentucky General Assembly to renovate the building.