White County Sheriff Q2 Candidate Responses

The Main Street Journal – Sparta has been listening to the community. Over the past several weeks, readers have submitted questions they want answered ahead of the 2026 election—and we’ve taken those directly to your White County Sheriff candidates.

Here is your second question, and answers from those candidates who chose to respond.

Do you have a plan to progressively improve the skills of your subordinate officers in matters such as increased responsibilities (towards promotion), understanding new, as well as current laws and regulations (on a county level) and both hard and soft skills?

STEVE PAGE: The number one thing any Sheriff can do is educate themselves and their employees on the laws and regulations of law enforcement. We train every day on new ways to do our jobs to be as successful as possible. Some of the trainings we do range from domestic violence to counseling young adults or children that need someone to talk to. We also train on individuals with disabilities such as diabetes and autism awareness and many more.

Certified law enforcement officers are required to attend annual training. This training must be a minimum of 40 hours. Each new uncertified deputy must attend the basic police school that has a requirement of 480 hours of training. Previously certified deputies are required to attend a 120-hour refresher school along with the 40-hour annual training during the first year of their employment.

Tennessee POST requires training in firearms, child sexual and physical abuse, mental illness, standardized field sobriety testing refresher course and emergency vehicle operations. In addition, the Governor’s Office will have administrative mandates during some years that are also required.

The above listed training is reported to the POST annually. These records are verified by POST each year. If those standards are not met, the deputy will not meet certification requirements for the State of Tennessee.

White County employees are also required to meet several hours of training related to Federal Issues on an annual basis. Those records are maintained by the Human Resources Office.

Throughout the year deputies receive training in certain area specialties. Those training funds are set by the White County Board of Commissioners, those funds are depleted each year. There are also free trainings offered, either through the State of Tennessee or the Federal Government, and deputies are encouraged to attend those trainings as well.

DANIEL TRIVETTE: A law enforcement agency is only as good as its field training (FTO) program. Officers go through an FTO program either before or after the police academy to learn critical skills and become familiar with department policies and procedures. We have to develop a strong FTO program using experienced officers to properly train our officers and set them up for success. FTO’s teach young officers de-escalation skills, verbal skills, and how to deal with the tragedies they deal with on a regular basis. Every supervisor should have been an active FTO prior to being promoted and we must also train our new supervisors on how to continually evaluate and provide training for our young officers. Working well with the district attorney general’s office and inviting them in to help train our officers how to develop strong cases for prosecution is crucial to teaching officers how to build strong cases. Building relationships with other public safety departments and training together is also important to effectively serve our community in large scale events and everyday calls for service. One thing I am currently working on is a plan to use retired law enforcement officers who reside in our county to be involved in the training process in some form to pass on their experience and knowledge to younger officers. There are concepts and values that officers who have successfully retired from a variety of agencies can offer our younger officers.

As a FTO officer, an FTO supervisor, a state certified law enforcement instructor in several topics, and having personally created a first line supervisor training program for my last agency I have firsthand experience on how to create a successful training program for new officers, new training officers, and new supervisors. These individuals are the foundation of any agency and we must focus our efforts in creating a culture of success in them. This is why I am well qualified for this position because I understand how to create a foundation for our agency to build successfully on.

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