Case Study
Charlotte County (FL) Sheriff’s Department 

Charlotte County, Florida, has 600 employees including 500 sworn/certified employees. Most of the sworn employees work in the corrections area or county law enforcement. All certified employees are required to complete three hours of training each month. Out of the non-certified employees there is a group of 50 employees with functions around 911 operations and they have continuing education requirements as well.

Charlotte County has been using LETN for 8 years. Until recently, Charlotte County utilized LETN's VHS and satellite services. Then they upgraded their service to DVD/CD format from VHS and now they have switched to PRIMEnet™ and DVOD. 

Challenges 
Charlotte County has always been extremely satisfied with LETN’s quality of training and the training’s content. LETN is their main training source for basic law enforcement training. Charlotte County finds LETN to be a great training option since 80% of required training titles can be found in LETN’s extensive library. 

Prior to using LETN, Charlotte County depended solely on instructor led training. This is a relatively expensive and time-consuming option. They employed two full-time instructors. There was quite a bit of travel required for trainees. They estimate that each officer was misplaced from their assigned area/beat on an average of 6 hours a month due to travel.

By being able to deliver training to the officers on video tapes, the officers’ time away from assigned areas was reduced to 1 ½ hours, twice a month. The officers would go to their local office closer to their patrol area and watch a training video.

The biggest complaint about the VHS/DVD program was that it was time- and labor-intensive for the training officer. The training coordinator had to copy and distribute as many as 30 VHS tapes and/or CDs each month. The coordinator then had to analyze and maintain all the training records and accreditation reporting. 

Solutions
When LETN introduced the new Desktop Video-On-Demand with PRIMEnet, Charlotte County switched to this training option immediately and has already reported marked improvements. PRIMEnet provides all the reporting and scheduling functions that Charlotte County was looking for. PRIMEnet and DVOD completely changed the training landscape and the focus of the training officer. PRIMEnet and DVOD have been well-received by officers due to its flexibility. 

Sgt. Wilson, training officer for Charlotte County, stated that officers like that they have an option to view the videos as well as review the materials in writing provided in PDF format through PRIMEnet. 

Some of the key improvements are evident: 

• The need to copy VHS and/or CD has been alleviated. 
• Scheduling, result tracking and reporting is easily done with PRIMEnet functions. 
• Compliance reporting has been greatly simplified. 
• Officers no longer need to be misplaced from their work area and are able to complete their training when most suited to them. Officers often use the less busy late hours of the night to complete their training.

Sgt. Wilson stated that “it is so nice that I can finally focus on people, not records.”