POST Continued Professional Training and Perishable Skills Program

Continued Professional Training (CPT) is required for peace officer and dispatcher personnel who are employed by California's Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) participating departments. The purpose of CPT is to maintain, update, expand, and/or enhance an individual’s knowledge and/or skills. Requirement: Every peace officer, public safety dispatcher, and public safety dispatch supervisor shall satisfactorily complete the CPT requirement of 24 or more hours of POST-qualifying training during every two-year CPT cycle.

Peace Officer CPT requirements

All peace officers below the middle management position and assigned to patrol, traffic or investigations who routinely effect the physical arrest of criminal suspects are required to complete Perishable Skills Program (PSP) and Communications training as part of their CPT requirement. 

Perishable Skills training consists of a minimum of 14 hours in each two-year period. Of the total 12 hours required, a minimum of 4 hours of each of the three following topical areas shall be completed:

  1. Arrest and control
  2. Driver training/awareness or driving simulator
  3. Tactical firearms or force options simulator

A fourth component of the PSP is communications training, either tactical or interpersonal, and shall consist of a minimum of 2 hours in each two-year period.

It is recommended that managers and executives complete, within their two-year compliance cycle, two hours of CPT devoted to updates in the perishable skills topical areas enumerated above.


In addition to the 14 hours of the PSP, peace officers must complete 10 more hours of POST certified training to satisfy the 24 hour CPT mandate. The 10 hours of training can be satisfied by attending other POST approved and certified classes.

Public safety dispatcher CPT requirements

Public Safety Dispatchers and Public Safety Dispatch Supervisors do not have specific CPT or PSP training courses; however, they must  satisfactorily complete the CPT requirement of 24 or more hours of POST-qualifying training during every two-year CPT cycle.  POST offers public safety dispatchers a variety of certified training resources, online continued learning opportunities and academies.

The Public Safety Dispatchers' Basic Course is the entry-level training requirement for dispatchers employed by agencies participating in POST's public safety dispatcher program, and must be completed within one year of being hired at a law enforcement agency. The Public Safety Dispatchers' Basic Course has a minimum hourly requirement of 120 hours, which is divided into 14 individual topics, called Learning Domains, which contain the minimum required foundational information for given subjects in the curriculum.  

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