Clay County deputies and secondary employment

Two documents, four years apart

Clay County publishes a public page for anyone wanting to hire a deputy, and separately publishes the Secondary Employment Agreement the customer signs. Both are worth reading, but they have to be read in the right order.

The page carries the current prices: $50 an hour for a deputy, $54 for a supervisor, plus a $5 administrative and equipment usage fee for every deputy or supervisor hour, and a three-hour minimum.

The agreement is the 2022 edition, and by its own terms it ran from 1 January to 31 December 2022. Its rates — $38 for a deputy, $42 for a supervisor — have plainly been overtaken. Read it for its terms, not its figures, and treat everything in it as needing confirmation from the office.

What follows separates the two: the prices come from the live page, the mechanics from the agreement.

A rate floor the customer may beat

The agreement calls its hourly figure a minimum, and then says something no other agency here says: this does not preclude the secondary employer from paying a higher rate to attract deputies to provide the desired service.

That is an open invitation to bid. Everywhere else in this section the rate is either fixed by the department, fixed by ordinance, or bargained by a union and applied uniformly. Clay sets a floor and lets the market work above it — which means, for a deputy, that two jobs advertised on the same evening are not necessarily worth the same.

Matched to the best-paid agency on the job

The second provision found nowhere else. When Clay deputies work a detail alongside other law enforcement personnel, the Clay deputy's rate is set to the highest rate paid to any officer of the same rank on that job.

The agreement works the example out in full: if the Florida Highway Patrol is working at $65 an hour and Clay deputies at their own rate, the Clay deputies are paid at the higher FHP figure.

Multi-agency details are common at large events, and this removes the awkwardness of two officers standing at the same barrier on different money. It also means a deputy's pay for a given job can be decided by who else turns up.

Paid in the hand, and the fee paid separately

Clay runs the money differently from most. The deputy is paid directly by the employer — cash, cheque or money order — while the $5 administrative and equipment fee goes to the Sheriff's Office on a separate cheque.

The page is emphatic about it: do not pay the deputy the administrative fee. The office bills that part itself.

The 2022 agreement adds the enforcement behind it — deputies not paid at the time of the detail are to be paid within 15 days, after which a $25 per deputy late fee accrues monthly until the bill is settled. There are set fees for returned cheques too, following the state statute on the subject.

Supervisors, and the incident commander

Supervision is triggered by headcount, and Clay words it as a job rather than a ratio: when an assignment needs more than five deputies, the sixth is a supervisor of sergeant rank or above. Past fifteen, another supervisor is added. If no supervisor is available, the Secondary Employment Specialist may designate an acting one.

Larger events can require an Incident Commander of lieutenant rank or higher, and that decision belongs to the Chief of Narcotics and Special Operations or above. An Incident Commander is paid at time and a half of their own regular rate rather than a flat detail rate — the only place in this section where an off-duty rate is calculated from the individual's salary.

Staffing is never the customer's decision. The secondary employment coordinator sets it, and if alcohol is served a minimum of two deputies is required.

Canceling, counted in business hours

Cancellation is free until it is not, and the clock is unusually precise: 24 business hours, which the agreement defines as 0800 to 1700. Cancel inside that and the customer owes three hours' salary plus administrative costs.

Defining the hours matters. A Friday evening cancellation for a Saturday job is nowhere near 24 business hours' notice, though it looks like a day on a calendar. Brevard and Hillsborough both use plain 24-hour clocks; Clay is the one that says which hours count.

Still a deputy while you are there

One short clause carries more than its length. Deputies working secondary employment are bound by the policies and procedures of the Sheriff's Office and are obligated to enforce state statutes and the ordinances of Clay County.

So the job is not a private security shift that happens to be staffed by a deputy. If something happens in front of them, the obligation is the same as on shift — which is exactly the situation the state's injury rule was written for.

The office also states plainly that secondary employment is not a primary function: it augments existing manpower, it cannot guarantee every request will be filled, and it will not supply a deputy if none is available. It reserves the right to refuse or discontinue any assignment judged contrary to the interests of the office or the county.

What state law adds — and where Clay departs from it

The agreement names Florida Statutes section 30.2905 in its opening line: any action a deputy takes on secondary employment must be consistent with that statute and with the office's own general orders.

Then it departs from the statute's default in the deputy's favour. The statute makes the off-duty employer responsible for the deputy, workers' compensation included. Clay's agreement says the secondary employer is not required to provide workers' compensation coverage, because the Clay County Board of County Commissioners provides it. A deputy hurt on a Clay detail is not chasing a shop owner's insurer.

On liability the agreement draws the statute's own line and writes it down: cover is the secondary employer's responsibility up to the point that a deputy enforces a county ordinance or state law. Before that line the deputy is the employer's; after it, the deputy is the county's. It is the clearest statement of that boundary in this section, and it matches the statute's rule that a deputy enforcing the law is regarded as working on duty.

The statute also exempts off-duty deputies from the chapter 493 licensing regime for guards and patrol services, so no license is needed for this work.

What this page cannot tell you

The deputy's side is not published: how the permit is approved beyond "good standing", what hour caps apply, what happens after sick leave, which employers are refused. Those sit in CCSO general orders and standard operating procedures, which the agreement cites but which are not on the open web.

And the central caution bears repeating: the agreement on the office's website is the 2022 edition and expired at the end of that year. Its structure is almost certainly still in force — the live page tracks it closely — but any figure in it should be confirmed with the secondary employment coordinator before anyone relies on it.

Common questions

What does a Clay County deputy cost?

Fifty dollars an hour with a three-hour minimum — and the rate is a floor the customer is invited to beat.

How is the deputy paid?

Directly, in hand, rather than through the agency's payroll.

What if another agency pays more on the same job?

The deputy's pay is matched to the higher-paid agency working it, so nobody on the same detail is on a lower rate.