Charlotte-Mecklenburg and secondary employment

The rates are published five years ahead

Every other agency in this section that publishes a rate publishes the current one. Charlotte publishes a schedule that runs to July 2029, with the step changes already on it.

So an officer can see that the minimum goes from $46 to $50 in July 2026 and to $54 in July 2028, and a business booking officers for an annual event can budget four years out. The department attaches one condition to it: the schedule is subject to change.

There is also a rate that is not hourly at all. A school traffic rate of $61 per shift is allowed where a school asks for a traffic shift of less than sixty minutes — a set price for the whole shift rather than an hourly rate, which is the department recognising that nobody staffs a twenty-minute crossing for a third of an hourly rate.

It is a minimum, not a price

The wording matters and it is easy to read past. These are the CMPD Minimum Hourly Rate and the CMPD Minimum Supervisor Rate. They are a floor beneath which an employer may not go — not what the job pays.

That is a different instrument from most of what this section documents. Miami-Dade's county order sets what the officer is paid and separately what the customer is charged. Nashville prints one contract rate per rank. Charlotte sets the bottom of the market and leaves the rest to the parties.

Special events are their own tier and considerably higher — $75 an hour for an officer against a $50 general minimum in July 2026, and $85 for a supervisor. A street closure is a different job.

This agency1,936

Median of the 48682

Largest here33,721

One of 48 city departments here with a traced figure. Each number is what that agency itself publishes, so some are authorized strength and some are actual headcount — useful for scale, not an exact comparison.

Two categories, and a street closure moves you between them

The programme splits in two. General secondary employment covers law enforcement related security and traffic direction, and runs through a single named officer in the Secondary Employment Office. Special events covers anything involving a street closure — parades, street festivals, charity walks, foot races — and is handled by a different team.

The dividing line is not the size of the event or the number of officers. It is whether the street closes. And the special events team will not begin work on an event at all until the organizer has submitted a Parade Permit Application to the City Department of Transportation — the permit comes before the police, not after.

Everyone must complete a Secondary Employment Agreement before any services are rendered, ticking a box at the end of each section to confirm they accept its terms. The department is blunt about the sequence: questions about staffing or availability for a particular request cannot be addressed until the agreement and application have been submitted. No informal enquiries about whether officers are available.

The department takes a fee on every hour, and caps itself

Alongside the officer's rate sits a CMPD fee, charged per hour per officer — $0.50 an hour today, rising to $1.00 in July 2027 and $1.25 in July 2029.

What it is is described precisely: a non-regulatory user fee to recoup the total costs associated with the secondary employment programme, set annually through the City of Charlotte budget appropriation, and it shall not exceed the total operating cost of the programme. A cost-recovery charge with a stated ceiling and an annual public appropriation behind it.

It is also inescapable. The fee must be paid by every employer, including employers paying cash and employers who take the officer on as a W-2 employee. Where a job is not paid through the department's platform at all, the employer is still sent a weekly invoice for the fee alone.

Set that against the rest of the section and it is a third model of who pays whom. Miami-Dade pays the deputy through county payroll and bills the customer. Nashville treats the officer as on duty and pays them itself. Charlotte has the employer pay the officer directly and charges the employer a fee for running the arrangement.

Everything goes through one platform

CMPD schedules and pays off-duty work through PowerDetails. Once an agreement or special event is approved the employer receives a registration link and sets up an account, and the job calendar shows whether each job is open or filled.

There are two exceptions to paying through it — and none to scheduling through it. An employer may pay outside the platform where they hire the officer as a W-2 employee and withhold taxes, or where they pay the officer on the day of the job. The parenthesis on that second one is the department's own and it is unambiguous: it cannot be the next day.

For everyone else the machinery is weekly. Invoices are issued weekly, every job at a location lands on one invoice, and when the employer pays it the money is routed to all the officers listed on it. Invoices are due within 30 days; day 31 is late.

Payment carries a processing charge on top of everything else — 2 per cent for ACH, 4.5 per cent for a credit card — and for special events the whole thing must be paid 72 hours before the event begins. New Castle County refuses further approvals at sixty days unpaid and Los Angeles County demands a cashier's cheque from a doubtful payer; Charlotte simply takes the money before the parade starts.

What this page cannot tell you

Everything above is the customer-facing half. It is what the work costs, how it is booked and how the money moves.

The rules that govern the officer sit in CMPD Directive 300-007, Secondary Employment, effective 7 October 2025. That directive exists and is published in the department's directives volume, but the file would not open when we went to read it, so nothing on this page describes it.

So there is nothing here on who approves an officer's secondary employment, whether there is an hour cap, what kinds of employer are prohibited, what may be worn, whether a patrol car may be used, or who carries the liability. Those answers are in 300-007 and this page has not read it.

Vehicles

This policy does not deal with vehicles — it does not say whether an agency car may be taken on an off-duty job, or what one costs. That is a gap in the document, not a prohibition.

Common questions

What does an off-duty Charlotte-Mecklenburg officer cost?

From July 2026 the published minimum is $50 an hour for an officer and $58 for a supervisor, rising to $54 and $62 in July 2028. Special events are higher — $75 and $85. These are minimums, not fixed prices, and CMPD adds a fee of $0.50 an hour per officer.

What is the CMPD fee?

A non-regulatory user fee charged per hour per officer to recover the cost of running the secondary employment programme. It is set annually through the City budget and may not exceed the programme's total operating cost. Every employer pays it, including cash and W-2 employers.

How is an off-duty CMPD officer booked and paid?

Through PowerDetails. Scheduling always runs through it; payment does too, except where the employer hires the officer as a W-2 employee or pays them on the day of the job. Invoices are weekly and due within 30 days.