Detroit Police Department and secondary employment

Two words that mean different things

Most agencies use one term for all of it. Detroit uses two, and defines both.

Outside employment is work that is not of a law enforcement nature, where vested police powers are not a condition of the job and no real or implied law enforcement service is owed to the employer. It is governed by a different document altogether, the code of conduct directive.

Secondary employment is work of a law enforcement nature, where police powers are a condition of employment, the member is paid by the employer, the work is at an assigned location inside the city, and it runs under an approved agreement managed by the department's Secondary Employment Office.

So the test is not who pays you or where you stand. It is whether the job requires you to be a police officer. That is the cleanest statement of the distinction in this section, and it explains why the rest of the directive reads as it does — every rule in it assumes you are doing police work for someone else's money.

The City Council created the programme

The directive opens by saying the City Council enacted an ordinance authorising the establishment of a secondary employment programme, and that the directive exists to implement it under a named section of the Detroit City Code.

That has consequences you can see in the money. The employer pays the officer directly at a rate consistent with the ordinance — the employer agreement must state a rate “not to be below what is established by city ordinance” — and the employer also pays an hourly administrative fee to the department that the City Council has approved. The employer handles all payroll matters, including withholdings, and pays the member and the tax authorities directly.

Compare the alternatives elsewhere. Philadelphia removed private police work and sells departmental overtime instead. San Jose runs a unit under the Chief. Kansas City runs a platform. Detroit put the floor price in municipal law, which means the rate is changed by the City Council rather than by the department or a union.

The department keeps control of the rest: who may work, which employers may hire, the rate and method of payment, any additional fees, and what extra equipment may be used.

It also reserves the right to refuse service to any business, location or event, subject to one condition — that the refusal is non-discriminatory.

Why the overtime rules do not bite

One paragraph explains something most policies leave unexplained.

Federal wage law lets the hours worked for a separate and independent employer stay separate from the hours worked for the city, so the second job does not push the first into overtime. But the directive states the condition attached: that treatment applies only where the work is performed solely at the member's option, and where the primary employer facilitates the secondary employment.

That is why the directive says twice that participation is voluntary and at the member's discretion once approved, and why the department is expressly not responsible for compensating anyone for the work. The voluntariness is not a courtesy. It is what keeps the arrangement lawful.

Who cannot work, and the weekly roster

Eligibility runs from police officer up to lieutenant. Seven conditions make a member ineligible: a probationary officer who has not completed their observation report; disabled, restricted or light duty; suspended or stripped of law enforcement authority; on attendance control; on extended sick leave; on no-gun status, whether administrative or medical; and anyone who has received discipline of ten days or more after exhausting their remedies.

The enforcement is what makes it work. Police Medical supplies a weekly roster of every member who has become ineligible. Alongside that, the member carries a duty to report themselves — immediate notification to the Secondary Employment Office on becoming ineligible, and immediate notification so that any assignments already booked can be reassigned to someone else.

Taking an assignment while ineligible is not simply a breach of the eligibility rule. The directive says the member will be disciplined for failing to disclose the ineligibility. The offence is the silence.

Two more day-level bars. No secondary employment on a day a sick day or an emergency day was used to cover a scheduled shift, and none on a day excused on family and medical leave. And none where the hours conflict with the primary assignment — the directive works the example, an officer on eight to four may not take an assignment starting at four.

Rank does not carry its pay across

Sergeants and above may apply for assignments posted for police officers. If one is selected for a job posted at officer level, they are paid at the police officer maximum rate. A lieutenant taking a job posted for sergeants is paid at the sergeant maximum.

It is a small provision and it settles something most agencies leave to argument: whether seniority should cost the employer more for the same post. Here the rate follows the job, not the person.

The limit on volume is 30 hours a week, with time worked on furlough and leave days exempt from the count under the code of conduct directive.

Supervision by headcount, and a permanent radio code

More than three officers working the same site at the same time obliges the employer to hire an on-site secondary employment supervisor. Above six, a second supervisor. On-duty supervisors are told through the zone dispatcher what secondary assignments are running in their area, and are to check on them periodically.

Everything runs in uniform unless the Chief has approved a specialised assignment as non-uniform. Where the Office decides an assignment needs a vehicle, it must be a marked one, borrowed from another part of the department if necessary, and there is a cost recovery fee for using it.

Before starting, the member notifies Communications and the desk supervisor of the precinct with the radio code, address, nature of the event, scheduled hours and how many members are assigned; at the end, they notify Communications again. Each member is issued a permanent radio code used across all their secondary employment. And if a member anticipates an encounter with a perpetrator they notify dispatch first, whether working alone or with a partner.

The department may recall any member from a secondary assignment to on-duty status immediately.

What is prohibited

Seven categories, unless the Chief directs otherwise: assignments reflecting adversely on the professionalism or dignity of the department; anything involving a conflict of interest or its appearance; anything adversely affecting on-duty performance; work inside establishments whose primary business is selling alcohol; work inside any sexually oriented business, the examples given being an adult bookstore, adult cabaret or adult motion picture theatre; and anything not in the best interests of the city.

The seventh is the interesting one. A member may not act as an intermediary between an employer and a group of employees working as watchmen or security guards, for the purpose of scheduling, coordinating or similar activity.

That is the same idea King County reaches by a different route when it says coordinating off-duty work is itself off-duty work. Detroit's version is narrower and aimed at a specific practice: the officer who stops working details and starts running them.

Note the word inside in the alcohol and adult-business bars. Standing outside such a premises is not what is prohibited — which is a materially different rule from San Jose, where alcohol-led venues are off limits altogether.

Who pays when you are hurt

The split is unusually clean, and worth knowing before it matters.

An injury sustained while taking police action — the examples are arrests and pursuits — is reviewed by the medical director, and if deemed compensable it is covered by workers' compensation.

An injury that is simply a workplace injury while working for the vendor — the example given is a slip and fall — is the vendor's insurer's responsibility.

So the question is not where you were or who was paying. It is what you were doing at the moment of the injury. Take police action and the city carries it; slip on the vendor's floor and the vendor's insurer carries it.

An injury report is due within 48 hours, the member reports to Police Medical the next business day with the report and all medical documentation, and where a use of force or a detainee injury occurs the secondary employment administration receives a copy of the supervisor's investigation report.

The paperwork, and the system that runs it

Approval starts on an outside scheduling system, named in the directive as Cover Your Assets. The member initiates a clearance form there, it goes to their immediate supervisor and simultaneously to Disciplinary Administration, back to the supervisor, then to the commanding officer, then to the Secondary Employment Office for final approval. The supervisor has 48 hours to complete their part.

There is also mandatory online training and a post-test before a member may work. And the rules posted on that system are binding in their own right: violating them brings suspension from the programme for a period the Chief decides.

On the job itself, reports carry the words “Secondary Employment” in the assignment block and name the employer in the body. Failing to complete required reports can cost the member their privileges.

Court outranks everything. A member may not take an assignment that conflicts with a court appearance; if notified of one while working an assignment, they must tell the employer and the coordinator before leaving; and the directive states plainly that court work is to be given the highest priority, with failure to appear risking contempt.

Finally, the post. A member maintains their position as the employer directs, and only exigent circumstances — the example is becoming aware of a violent crime nearby — justify leaving it. Even then they must notify dispatch, stay mindful of available backup, and be able to articulate the decision in great detail.