Alexandria Police and off-duty employment

The question is whether police action is anticipated

Every other agency in this section names the categories after the work: secondary employment, extra duty, special duty, non-regular employment. The labels then mean different things in different places, and an officer reading another department's policy can get it exactly backwards.

Alexandria asks a different question. LEAA is off-duty employment where law enforcement action is anticipated. LEANA is off-duty employment where it is not. Nothing turns on whether the job is called security, whether a uniform is worn, or who the customer is — it turns on whether the badge is expected to be used.

That is a better test, and it produces a cleaner rulebook. Nearly every restriction in the directive attaches to LEAA specifically, because that is where the risk sits.

Off-duty employment is defined to include compensation in the form of free or reduced rent, and the directive notes plainly that rates of pay are not governed by City pay policies but the compensation is reportable under IRS rules. A rent arrangement gets its own separate agreement form.

The paperwork inverts what you would expect: a single annual form covers all of an officer's LEAA employment, while a separate form is required for each LEANA position. The renewal dates differ too — the employer agreement renews on 1 March, the employee request on 1 April.

Fifteen minutes decides who is paying you

This is the most precisely engineered provision we have found anywhere in the section, and it solves a problem most policies leave hanging: an officer on a private detail gets sent to a call, and two employers are now involved.

An officer on a LEAA detail may be assigned to a call for service, but only with an on-duty supervisor's approval. They respond immediately and do not return to the detail until authorized.

If they remain on that call for more than fifteen minutes, they are officially placed in on-duty status and may claim overtime at the premium rate for the time spent. Because they were already working a paid assignment, callback pay is not authorized.

The employer's side is settled in advance on the agreement form. An off-duty employer may elect to keep the officer on their payroll for the first fifteen minutes of such an absence. Beyond fifteen minutes it counts as a break in employment for as long as the absence lasts. And the rule that closes the loop: at no time may an officer stay on the employer's payroll and claim overtime from the Department for the same hours.

One further division of cost. Where the extra time arises from action taken on the employer's behalf — an arrest connected to the detail itself — the compensation is the employer's responsibility, not the Department's. Court appearances arising from the exercise of police powers on a LEAA detail are paid by the Department.

Newport News answers the same question by reverting the officer to on-duty status and adjusting the time. Alexandria puts a stopwatch on it and tells both paymasters where the line falls.

The employer has to agree to assist prosecution

No officer may work a LEAA detail unless the employer agrees to assist in the prosecution of any case where the officer takes law enforcement action — whether on the employer's report of a crime or on the officer's own observation. It is written into the agreement the employer signs.

It is a quietly excellent provision. A business that hires police presence, then declines to press charges or produce a witness once something happens, has used the officer as a deterrent and left them carrying an unprosecutable arrest. Alexandria makes that a condition of hiring in the first place.

The agreement also draws the control line explicitly. The employer may direct a limited degree of deployment — the hours to be worked, where the officer is stationed. But the employer has no authority or control over the officer when the officer is actively engaged in law enforcement activity.

And the employer is put on notice of what the City does not do for them: while Alexandria may provide limited cover for officers taking law enforcement action, nothing protects the employer from liability, workers' compensation or disability claims arising from their use of off-duty officers.

House rules, and the door of a bar

The prohibition on enforcing house rules appears three times in this directive — in the restrictions, on the employee's form and on the employer's agreement — and it is drawn more concretely than anywhere else.

Officers may not engage in any activity involving the enforcement or execution of house rules, and the directive names what it means: searches of persons or property without legal justification, soliciting or collecting fees, costs or other expenses, and anything otherwise outside the scope of lawful police action. Bag, purse and clothing searches require legal justification or consent.

At licensed premises the rule becomes physical. Officers may not work inside an establishment selling alcohol for consumption on the premises where the primary purpose of the job is controlling disorderly customers. Such details are worked in uniform and are for exterior or perimeter security only.

Three specific tasks are named as prohibited: enforcing house rules, routine weapons pat-downs, and alcohol level screenings at the entrance. Officers are told to physically distance themselves from the point of alcohol service wherever possible.

Also prohibited outright: bill collecting, repossession or collection work of any kind — including distributing late rent notices; private investigation, civil process serving and unarmed security guard work; any job needing access to police records not available to the public; and any employer failing to comply with the law. LEAA work may not be done outside the city limits.

What you may not accept, and what you must declare

Officers working a LEAA detail may not solicit or accept any compensation beyond what is documented on the agreement. The directive lists what it has in mind: full or partial meal compensation, rent discounts, free passes, and reduced-cost purchasing.

The agreement form itself asks for the rate, whether the officer is paid as a regular employee on a W-2 or as a contractor on a 1099, and the value of any additional benefits. Changing any of it means resubmitting the form.

Officers are personally responsible for reporting all compensation — including reduced rent or other considerations — and for paying the resulting federal, state and local taxes.

Where an employer designates the officer an actual employee with benefits, the officer must supply written documentation of the extent of their third-party liability, workers' compensation and disability cover, filed with the request.

And a restriction that reads as though it was written after an incident: officers may not allow their title, badge, uniform, rank, or the Department's or City's name to be used in any advertising or correspondence by an off-duty employer without the Chief's written consent — and that includes promoting their own work if self-employed.

Cover runs only as far as the police action

The insurance position is stated without softening, and every officer working details anywhere should read something like it.

The City and the Department may provide liability, disability and workers' compensation cover to an officer on an approved LEAA detail only where the officer is required to take law enforcement action. Anything the officer does on the employer's behalf that does not directly involve police action is not covered by the City's or Department's plans.

The directive then says what follows: officers should strongly encourage employers to obtain cover for injuries on site and for circumstances not involving law enforcement action, and for the employer's own liability. If the employer does not provide it, the officer may be personally liable.

The same logic reaches the kit. Damage to an officer's uniform or to issued equipment, unless it happens during a law enforcement action, is the employer's responsibility — and where the employer does not cover it, the officer pays for it themselves.

Set that against the range in this section: Orlando treats city-paid extra duty as though on duty; Lexington treats private duty as on duty outright; New Castle County gives no workers' compensation at all. Alexandria draws the line down the middle of a single shift, by what the officer was doing at the moment it happened.

Eighteen hours, and the six after them

The ceilings are unusually high, and paired with a recovery rule rather than a rest rule.

An officer may not work more than 30 hours of off-duty employment in a week running Saturday to Friday — unless they are on annual or compensatory leave for the entire week, in which case the cap lifts. And no more than 18 hours in any 24-hour period, whether off duty, on duty or any combination, though shift extensions are excluded.

An officer who works the full 18 hours may not begin another tour of duty — regular hours, discretionary overtime or off-duty employment — until six hours have passed from the end of the last assignment.

LEAA work requires full police powers to be in effect. An officer restricted by their treating physician from any part of their regular duties may not work LEAA at all, and nobody may work LEAA within 24 hours of any sick leave, disability leave or light duty hours — though a watch commander may grant a short exception case by case, and the Chief may permit certain LEANA work during prolonged light duty with a physician's written consent.

Probationary officers may not work LEAA details until they reach step five of training. LEANA work is open to them throughout.

Marking in, and the machinery behind it

An officer starting a LEAA assignment marks in service, gives the location and expected duration, and uses the X-ray number assigned to that specific detail — not a general one. They mark out at the end, and mark out on any enforcement action or investigation so that the activity is captured in the dispatch system. Patrol supervisors on duty are expected to check, as time permits, that officers working details have actually marked in, and to document it when they have not.

Dispatchers log detail officers into the system where mobile computers are unavailable, dispatch calls to them for incidents at their location, and log all their enforcement activity.

Behind that sit two roles. An Administrative Coordinator keeps the electronic file of every approved and denied request, every approved employer by location, every detail coordinator and every X-ray number — and contacts each employer annually to audit the performance of the officers working it and of the coordinator. A detail coordinator runs an individual detail, acts as liaison with the employer, and files a monthly report of names and hours by the 15th of the following month.

No officer may coordinate more than three details, and preference in appointment goes to those not already coordinating one. Nobody may take compensation, directly or indirectly, for procuring or coordinating work for another employee, and soliciting LEAA work is prohibited.

An officer who cannot appear for a detail must make direct contact with the detail coordinator or watch commander, explain why, and obtain clear authorisation of relief — a message left is not enough.