Assistant Executive Director’s Message
As the holiday season ends and we ring in the New Year, it is a time to reflect
on past accomplishments and plan our personal and professional goals for the
future. The past year has provided us with many great opportunities to serve
Georgia’s police chiefs and the communities they serve. As we look to the
future, we have several fantastic programs coming to fruition that suggest
2019 is going to be a great year for the Georgia Chiefs.
Dwayne Orrick
GACP
Assistant Executive
Director
To view current
events, legislative
alerts and other
up-to-date info visit
our website
www.gachiefs.com
For the past year, GACP staff has been working with the Local Government
Risk Management Services (LGRMS) to develop a Risk Reduction Certificate
program to assist agencies with limited resources to improve officer safety and
reduce their liability exposure. LGRMS is the largest provider of liability,
property damage, and workers’ compensation insurance to local governments
in Georgia. The development of this program is the result of one Warden
Dennis Nelson’s goals as GACP president. To attain the Certificate, agencies
will be required to comply with 27 policy directives. Reference materials and
model policies have also been developed to ease the process with becoming
compliant with policy directives. Currently, GACP and LGRMS staff are
conducting the final pilot tests before promulgating the final product. Once
implemented, agencies who utilize LGRMS insurance services that implement
the policy directives will be eligible to receive a 5% reduction in their insurance
premiums. We anticipate announcing the program at the Winter Conference in
February. Soon after our conference, LGRMS will begin advertising the
program with Georgia Municipal Association members. The program may also
be highlighted at the GMA Summer Conference. Because of this, some chiefs
may start receiving inquiries from their elected officials about participating in
the program.
One of President Joseph Wirthman’s goals is to develop and offer two P.O.S.T
approved online training webinars. The use of webinars is a cost-effective
approach to providing targeted training updates on evolving issues for law
enforcement executives. On December 6 th , Dunwoody Police Chief Billy
Grogan hosted our first webinar training, First Amendment Considerations
for Law Enforcement Using Social Media . This training was well attended
and received very high ratings.
After several months of negotiation, GACP has entered into a contract with
Lexipol, a national leader in developing law enforcement policies, as an
Outstanding Sponsor. To better partner with our members, Lexipol has agreed
to provide several additional services for our entire membership to include
providing a nationally recognized speaker at one of our annual conferences,
two free webinars for all members (POST credited), and one relevant article in
each newsletter. At our upcoming Winter Conference, Lexipol will be
sponsoring, Michael Mariarchi, a leading expert in employment-related lawsuit
prevention. Michael will be presenting Reset the Clock: Replace Liability with
Credibility , an effective approach to prevent attorneys from using a leader’s
past decisions to challenge the decisions they make in the future.
(continued on next page)
www.gachiefs.com • Page 4 • 1st Quarter Newsletter