Houston Police and extra employment

A permit number, every time

Houston runs this through an Extra Employment Office with administrative authority over every application, investigation and permit. And the mechanism is a permit number obtained before working any extra employment at all, requested through the department's internal system.

An officer away from work phones their division and has an on-duty colleague enter the details. If their own division is closed, any other division will do. If the system itself is down, they fax a paper application before working and keep the transmission receipt.

One thing is notably absent: supervisory approval is not required to submit an application. The office investigates every one instead. Officers do have to give their supervisor a copy by the end of their next working day.

Permits for permanent work — anything over 30 days — renew each year within the officer's birth month. A company with multiple locations under one owner needs a single permit listing them all; a franchise with different owners needs one per location.

Change the hours, the location or the days and the old permit is canceled and a new application submitted.

The unauthorized list

Before applying, an officer must review an unauthorized location and person list — places and people barred from employing police personnel.

Checking it is the officer's own responsibility, and the policy states the consequence of not doing so plainly: failing to check may result in disciplinary action up to and including indefinite suspension.

The grounds for refusing or revoking a permit run to two dozen items. Several protect the officer rather than the department, and they are the ones worth knowing.

A permit is refused or revoked where the business expects the officer to enforce house rules — defined as the employer's own rules not backed by law or ordinance. Where the business restricts the officer from areas the public can access. And where the business requires the officer to sign a hold harmless indemnity agreement, which the policy explains could make the officer liable for the employer's legal costs if the employer is sued.

Also refused: businesses of questionable reputation, those under investigation by the city attorney for nuisance abatement, those whose staff will not cooperate with an investigation, and anywhere the work is considered controversial — a labor dispute, a civil dispute, or serving civil process.

Bars need a certification card

An alcoholic beverage establishment is defined precisely: primary purpose the sale of alcohol, or 51 percent or more of income from on-premise consumption.

Working one is prohibited unless at least two uniformed officers work simultaneously at the establishment. And three conditions admit no waiver at all: the venue must be inside the city limits, the officer must not be assigned to Vice, Narcotics or Criminal Intelligence, and the officer must hold a valid Extra Employment Club Certification card.

That card comes from a department training course attended off duty and completed again every year to renew or apply for a permit at such a location. It must be carried while working.

Officers may not own any interest in an alcoholic beverage establishment. After-hours clubs — anything open past 2am — are barred outright, as are raves, which the policy defines and leaves the office to rule on. Where the office is closed and an officer is unsure, they may not work the event.

Premises with eight liners — machines the state treats as illegal gambling devices — are prohibited, and bingo requires the employer's license number on the application.

Coordinators cannot pay you, and cannot fire you

Coordinators act as liaison between employer and officers, and the limits on them are sharper than anywhere else here.

A coordinator may not accept payment for work performed by other officers, and may not pay officers. Each officer is paid directly and individually by the employer. A coordinator has no hiring or firing authority — only the employer may hire and fire.

Nor may a coordinator arrange the services of a higher-ranking supervisor from their own chain of command. They may supervise a job themselves only at sergeant rank or above, and never over an officer of higher rank.

Officers may not solicit or advertise for police-related extra employment, submit security proposals, or sign contracts without the office's approval — and may not form companies or trading names for the purpose.

Staffing runs on a ratio. Six or more officers at one location requires a sergeant or above present throughout. Twelve or more requires both a lieutenant and a sergeant present at all times.

What you may take with you

City vehicles are prohibited during the work itself. A take-home vehicle may be driven to and from the job, and the policy draws the line with an example: an officer may sit in it for shelter from the weather, but not use it for patrolling or driving around the site.

A vehicle deceptively similar to a marked department unit is prohibited outright.

Uniformed police-related work is done in the department's official uniform, and assigned gear conforming to that standard — baton, body armour, taser — may be used. Radios and mobile terminals may be used for police-related work.

Bicycle, motorcycle and mounted work each carry their own qualification regime. Motorcycle work needs a state-approved 40-hour operator course and a 16-hour recertification every year, taught by the department only — outside courses are not accepted — plus an annual inspection of the officer's own motorcycle and equipment.

Reports on your own time, and coverage that may not exist

An officer who becomes aware of a reportable incident at their extra employment location writes the report, and it is completed by the end of those hours. The policy is explicit that extra-employment reports will not be completed during regular duty hours unless authorized leave is taken.

The same applies to racial profiling data, which must be entered before the officer's next regular shift — and the policy states plainly that the department will not compensate the officer for the time taken to enter it.

On coverage, Houston is more candid than most and less reassuring. Benefits, workers' compensation, public liability and legal representation provided by the city may not be available while working extra employment. Workers' compensation may not be available at all to an officer who worked without obtaining a permit number first.

The advice that follows is blunt: officers are told to determine what coverage is available from their extra employment employer.

Work is confined to Harris County and seven named adjacent counties. Outside Harris County it requires verbal approval from the highest-ranking law enforcement official in that jurisdiction, whose name, title, phone number and the date of approval go on the application.

Who cannot work it

Probationary officers are barred. The exception is narrow: a lateral entry or reinstatement, with at least twelve months of prior street duty at another agency, who has completed Houston's field training programme, and who works alongside a named non-probationary officer present at the site. Even then, never at an alcoholic beverage establishment.

No extra employment or scheduled overtime within 24 hours following the start of a shift for which unscheduled leave was taken — the sick-day rule, expressed as a rolling window rather than a calendar day.

Police-related work is barred while suspended, relieved of duty, on transitional duty or taking injury leave. Reporting for active military duty cancels every permit an officer holds, effective that date.

Civilian employees may work only non-police work, may display no part of the uniform or equipment, and may not work as a security guard, private investigator, police officer or jailer — though they may dispatch for other police agencies.

Patrol and special operations captains may not coordinate or work any job within their own area of responsibility.