Cook County Sheriff and secondary employment

You declare next year's work before this year ends

Every other agency in this section approves outside work as it comes up, or renews it on an anniversary. Cook County runs a calendar.

Members — sworn and civilian alike — who intend to work secondary employment must file an electronic disclosure on or before 1 December covering the following calendar year. Approval then runs from 1 January and expires at 2400 hours on 31 December.

The consequence of missing it is the part worth knowing. A member already approved who fails to submit the updated annual disclosure by 1 December is not authorized to continue the work they are already doing until the new disclosure is in and approved. The deadline does not merely delay new work; it switches off existing work.

New employment appearing mid-year needs permission before it starts, with the disclosure and supporting documents filed at least 14 calendar days ahead. A department head may waive that in an emergency at their own discretion.

Canceling is a written report through the chain of command, and members are told to keep the disclosure accurate and current at all times. A member on medical leave who intends to work outside must notify human resources directly with the employer's name, the nature of the work and contact details, and file a fresh disclosure on returning.

What does not count as secondary employment

The definition is broad — any activity outside the Office for which a member is compensated in salary, wages, commission, fees or other value, including self-employment. What makes it useful is the list of things the policy expressly puts outside it, which no other agency here bothers to draw.

Owning or transferring stocks and bonds where the member has a personal interest does not count — but acting as a stockbroker or in a similar fiduciary capacity does. Owning or transferring real estate in which the member has a personal interest does not count — but acting as a real estate broker, agent or salesperson does.

Also outside it: alimony, separate maintenance and dependent support payments; annuities, pensions and income from life insurance or endowment contracts; fees for acting as an executor, administrator, conservator, guardian ad litem or trustee; inheritances, bequests and income from a beneficial interest in a trust; and royalties from a book or any other publication.

That last one is a small kindness. An officer who writes a book is not filing a secondary employment disclosure for the royalties.

The line the policy is drawing is between owning something and working at something. It answers in a paragraph what officers elsewhere have to guess at.

Armed work needs a million dollars and a signature

Anyone applying for armed security, traffic control or other armed law enforcement related work must supply two things on top of the ordinary disclosure.

First, an Indemnity Agreement signed by the prospective employer, executed by an officer of the business or government agency with authority to enter into it. Second, a certificate proving insurance or self-insurance of at least $1,000,000, backing that indemnity.

The prohibition is absolute: no security related secondary employment shall be approved or permitted under any circumstances until the executed agreement and the proof of insurance are in the Office's hands. Both are scanned into the secondary employment repository at the time of disclosure.

Compare the range. Overland Park requires $500,000 and forbids the employer from asking the officer to indemnify them. Washington State Patrol requires $1,000,000 naming false arrest and use of force. DC requires $100,000 with the District named as an additional insured. Cook County requires the employer to indemnify the Office and to prove they can afford to.

The Office will not be liable, and will not pay your court time

Two sentences in the policy settle what happens when something goes wrong, and neither favours the member.

The Sheriff's Office will not be liable for the actions or omissions of a member during actual work hours in secondary employment. Flat, with no carve-out for moments when police authority is exercised — which is the carve-out most agencies here rely on.

And members working in a security capacity will not request or be credited with regular salary or overtime for court related activities — court appearances, depositions — arising from secondary employment.

That is the sharpest available contrast with the two agencies that answer it the other way. Newport News pays the officer for court arising from a detail and forbids billing it to the customer. Alexandria pays it where it results from the exercise of police powers. Cook County pays nothing.

For an officer weighing up a detail, that is a real cost hidden behind the hourly rate: the arrest is the easy part, and the two mornings in court afterwards are unpaid.

Liquor, cannabis and gambling — including the pavement outside

Security related work is prohibited at any establishment whose primary business is the sale of liquor, cannabis or gambling — and the prohibition expressly extends to working outside the establishment, the policy naming the parking lot and the sidewalk.

Cannabis is a live inclusion rather than a formality: Illinois has legal recreational sale, so these are lawful businesses that the Office has nonetheless placed off limits. Seattle takes the same view of marijuana businesses.

The exterior extension matters, because the car park is exactly where most agencies put the officer instead of inside. Clayton County requires the majority of the shift to be spent there. Newport News permits it with two officers. UT System closes the whole property, and so does Cook County.

Separately barred whatever the venue: serving as a bartender or dispensing liquor, and working as a cocktail waiter or waitress.

The wider restrictions run to the familiar ground — no employer that is not properly registered, licensed or insured; no unauthorised use of the Office's authority, equipment, records, files, vehicles or services as a condition of the job; nothing bringing the Office into disrepute; nothing conflicting with the Office, the example given being acting as an agent for a party in legal action against it. Probationary members are barred, except on promotion within their department.

One prohibition appears nowhere else: secondary employment may not involve the use of a Sheriff's Office canine for any purpose.

If the site becomes a labor dispute

Several policies in this section bar working for an employer involved in a strike. Cook County is the only one that deals with the dispute arriving after the officer is already working there.

Where a member is in a security capacity at the site of a labor dispute, secondary employment is prohibited for the duration of that dispute. The member must notify their department head through the chain of command without delay.

Failing to do so is not treated as an oversight. It brings revocation of secondary employment, disciplinary action, and referral to the Office of Professional Review.

The reasoning is not spelled out, but it is not hard to see: a deputy in a security role on a picket line is a badge on one side of an industrial dispute, and the Office wants out of it the moment that becomes the situation.

Watched, reviewed, and asked to hand over the details

Approval is not a one-off event. Secondary employment is subject to regular and continual review by supervisors, department heads, the Attendance Review Unit and human resources.

The review looks at disciplinary history and attendance relevant to the outside work, including revocation of law enforcement powers where the job is security related, and it is repeated whenever there is relevant discipline, an attendance problem, or a change in employment status — the examples given are duty injury, duty restrictions, ordinary disability, leave and family medical leave. A department head may suspend approval on a status change and re-evaluate when the member returns to full duty.

As a condition of approval, the member authorises the release of all their employment information to the Sheriff's Office on request — by the Sheriff, the Office of Professional Review, their department head or the head of human resources.

Two further requirements are unusual. A member who is a licensed attorney must also get approval from the Sheriff's Legal Department General Counsel before working outside. And no preferential treatment may be given by the Office or its members to the employers of members working secondary employment.

Continuing to work after a denial or revocation brings a referral to the Office of Professional Review and discipline up to and including termination. Any member who is in violation of the policy, or meets any criterion that prohibits the work, must cease working without delay rather than waiting to be told.