If a Kansas city hires another city's newly trained police officer within a year, does it owe the full training cost or just a prorated share?

Plain-English summary

Girard's city attorney asked about a reimbursement dispute between two Kansas cities. Girard paid to send a part-time officer through basic training at the Kansas Law Enforcement Training Center, covering tuition, salary during training, and travel expenses totaling $13,769.57. The officer resigned from Girard about eight months after finishing training, and roughly eleven months after graduating, joined the Columbus police department. Girard demanded full reimbursement under K.S.A. 74-5609a(b); Columbus offered only about 7%, roughly matching the fraction of the one-year window that had already passed by the time Columbus hired him.

The Attorney General sided with Girard. K.S.A. 74-5609a(b) says a city that hires an officer within one year of that officer completing training "shall reimburse" the city that paid for the training, covering tuition, salary, travel, and other incidental training expenses. The opinion found the statute's text unambiguous on two points relevant to the dispute: it contains no exception for officers who resigned from the paying city before joining the hiring city, and it contains no mechanism for a prorated or partial reimbursement tied to how much of the one-year period had elapsed. The Legislature wrote a bright-line, all-or-nothing rule, full reimbursement if hiring happens within the year, nothing if it happens after, and the opinion declined to read a proportional-share option into the statute that the Legislature itself never included, however equitable that outcome might seem to the hiring city.

What this means for you

Cities considering hiring an officer who recently completed law enforcement training elsewhere: the opinion holds you owe full reimbursement, tuition, training-period salary, travel, and other incidental costs, to the city that paid for that officer's training if you hire the officer within one year of training completion, regardless of how much of that year has already passed or whether the officer had already left the paying city's employment.

Cities that paid for an officer's training and later see that officer hired away: the opinion confirms your right to full reimbursement under K.S.A. 74-5609a(b) is not diminished just because the officer resigned from your department before taking the new job, as long as the hire happens within the statutory one-year window.

Officers weighing a move to another department shortly after training: the opinion is a reminder that your new employer may owe your former employer a real reimbursement bill if you're hired within a year of finishing training, a cost that can factor into hiring negotiations.

Common questions

Does it matter that the officer had already resigned from the first city before being hired by the second?
No, according to the opinion; the statute's text contains no exception based on whether the officer's employment with the paying city had already ended before the hiring city brought them on.

Can the hiring city negotiate a prorated reimbursement based on how much of the year had passed?
Not under the statute as written, according to the opinion; K.S.A. 74-5609a(b) has no mechanism for proportional reimbursement, so the hiring city owes the full amount if the hire falls within the one-year window.

What costs are included in the required reimbursement?
The opinion notes the statute requires reimbursement of the tuition paid, the officer's salary during training, travel expenses, and any other expenses incidental to training the officer.

Background and statutory framework

K.S.A. 74-5609a(a) lets the Kansas Law Enforcement Training Center (KLETC) charge tuition for training each law enforcement officer. Subsection (b) requires any city, county, or state agency that hires a police or law enforcement officer within one year of that officer completing a course of instruction at a state or local law enforcement training school to reimburse the entity that paid the officer's tuition, including the tuition itself, the officer's salary and travel expenses during training, and any other expenses incidental to that training.

Applying straightforward plain-text interpretation, the opinion found the statute's one-year reimbursement trigger unambiguous and containing no carve-outs, whether for an officer's intervening resignation from the paying entity or for prorating the reimbursement based on elapsed time. Because the statute is silent on both points, the opinion concluded the Legislature intended a simple, bright-line rule: hire within the year, pay in full; hire after the year, pay nothing, leaving no room for the kind of equitable, proportional settlement Columbus had proposed.

Citations and references

Statutes:
- K.S.A. 74-5609a (incl. (a), (b))

Source

• Landing page: https://www.ag.ks.gov/reports-resources/ag-opinions
• Original PDF: https://www.ag.ks.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/10494/638460984362200000

Original opinion text

July 20, 2023

ATTORNEY GENERAL OPINION NO. 2023-4

Mr. Steve Angermayer, City Attorney
City of Girard
120 North Ozark
Girard, Kansas 66743

Re: State Boards, Commissions and Authorities—Law Enforcement
Training Center; Commission on Peace Officers' Standards and
Training—Tuition; Reimbursement of Tuition

Synopsis: K.S.A. 74-5609a(b) requires that a city which employs a law
enforcement officer within one year after the completion of that
officer's training reimburse the city that paid for the officer's training.
Cited herein: K.S.A. 74-5609a.

Dear Mr. Angermayer:

As the Girard City Attorney, you ask whether the City of Columbus, which hired a
person as a law enforcement officer within one year of that person's completion of
law enforcement training, must reimburse the city that paid for such training, the
City of Girard, even if that person resigned his employment with the City of Girard
prior to becoming employed by the City of Columbus?

K.S.A. 74-5609a contains two principal provisions. Subsection (a) allows the law
enforcement training center (KLETC) to charge tuition for each law enforcement
officer it trains.

Subsection (b), which is relevant here, provides as follows:

  Any city, county, or state agency which commences employment of a
  police officer or law enforcement officer within one year of the time such
  police officer or law enforcement officer has completed a course of

    instruction at a state or local law enforcement training school shall
    reimburse the city, county, or state agency which paid the tuition for
    training such officer. This reimbursement shall include the amount of
    the tuition paid, the officer's salary and travel expenses and any other
    expenses incurred which were incidental to training such officer.

According to the facts supplied by the City of Girard, it had a part-time officer
attend the basic training class at KLETC from January 3, 2022, through April 3,
2022. The gross wages for this officer during his training time was $13,476.27. Fuel
costs for his last month of training amounted to $293.30. This officer subsequently
resigned on December 22, 2022, and was hired by the City of Columbus as an officer
on March 13, 2023, eleven months and five days after he graduated from KLETC.

The City of Girard then demanded reimbursement from the City of Columbus for
the training costs it incurred for this officer, an amount of $13,769.57. The City of
Girard claims the City of Columbus refused this demand. According to the City of
Columbus, it made what it characterized as a reasonable counter-offer of $963.86,
which is 7% of the City of Girard's training costs, reflecting the approximate period
of time during the one-year time frame following the officer's training that he
worked for the City of Columbus.

The City of Girard contends that it is entitled to a full reimbursement of its training
costs because the officer in question went to work for the City of Columbus within
the one-year period. The City of Columbus seems to believe its proposal to settle the
matter for a pro rata share of the training costs is fair, reasonable, and presumably
consistent with the spirit of the statute.

Answering this question requires the interpretation of K.S.A. 74-5609a. The most
fundamental rule of statutory construction is that the intent of the Legislature
governs if that intent can be ascertained.1 Legislative intent is to be discerned
through the statutory language enacted, giving common words their ordinary
meanings.2 When a statute is plain and unambiguous, speculation about the
legislative intent behind that clear language is unnecessary; one should refrain
from reading something into the statute that is not readily found in its words.3

The provisions of K.S.A. 74-5609a(b) are clear and unambiguous. It provides that
any city which employs a law enforcement officer within one year after that officer
completed his or her training shall reimburse the city that paid for the training. The
statute makes no exceptions for instances where the officer left the employ of the
city that paid for the training prior to becoming employed by another city. Nor does
the statute's language contain any reimbursement limitation such as allowing for a

1 Montgomery v. Salah, 311 Kan. 649, 654-55, 466 P.3d 902 (2020).
2 Id. at 654.
3 Id. at 655.

pro rata or proportional-share reimbursement. While we can appreciate the
equitable appeal of the City of Columbus' counter-offer to pay a proportional share
of the training costs, the statute simply makes no provision for a proportional
reimbursement. Rather, the Legislature imposed a bright-line rule of complete
reimbursement if the officer commences employment within one year of the time the
officer has completed training. If the Legislature had intended to allow for
proportional reimbursement, it would have said so in the statute.

Because the City of Columbus employed an officer within one year from the
completion of that officer's training, K.S.A. 74-5609a(b) requires that it reimburse
the City of Girard for the training costs it paid.

                                   Sincerely,

                                   /s/Kris Kobach

                                   Kris Kobach
                                   Attorney General

                                   /s/Anthony J. Powell

                                   Anthony J. Powell
                                   Solicitor General