LA County Sheriff and outside employment

It starts with a statute, not a policy

The section opens by quoting California's government code directly: a local agency officer or employee shall not engage in any employment, activity or enterprise for compensation which is inconsistent, incompatible, in conflict with, or inimical to their duties, or to the duties and responsibilities of the agency employing them.

That framing matters. The department is not granting a privilege it invented; it is administering a statutory prohibition on incompatible activity. Everything that follows is the machinery for deciding what counts as incompatible.

Reporting is immediate rather than in advance of starting. Any full-time permanent employee already engaged in outside work, or in the process of engaging in it, must report it to their unit commander at once and submit the forms.

Three forms are standard — a request for approval, a signed admonition, and a county-wide report on outside employment activities. Security and teaching work require more.

Ten business days for an answer

Unit commanders must advise the employee of approval or denial within ten business days of receiving the request. Few policies in this section put a clock on the department rather than only on the officer.

Before deciding, the commander confirms the employee's personnel folder has been reviewed, so that approval cannot be granted to someone whose record already puts them in breach of something. The specific question named is conflict of interest.

The department reserves the power to approve, disapprove, or impose limits on the maximum hours — so an approval is not simply yes or no but can come conditioned.

On approval, the employee is handed copies of the policy itself, the signed form, and the sections on prohibited employment, fraternisation and prohibited associations. The original goes into the unit personnel folder.

An approval is not permanent. A unit commander may suspend or withdraw it at any time a conflict or violation is identified, and must notify the employee in writing with the reasons.

Twenty-four hours, and that is a ceiling not a target

The maximum outside employment is 24 hours a week — matching New Castle County for the tightest limit in this section.

And the policy adds a qualification most do not: this is the maximum limit, and individual circumstances may dictate a much lower one. The number is where the ceiling sits, not what anyone is entitled to.

Members on probation may not work outside employment at all. Nor may an employee currently carrying a performance evaluation below competent — the outside job goes when the rating slips.

Underneath sits a general test: nothing whose nature, schedule or extent might impair, inhibit or interfere with the employee's performance, efficiency or effectiveness in county service.

You cannot sell the badge

One prohibition is stated more directly here than almost anywhere else, and it is about reputation rather than conduct.

No outside job may be directly or indirectly related to skills, knowledge, reputation or prestige possessed by the employee solely as a result of employment with the department.

The policy then spells out what that forbids: neither the employee nor any employer or business associate may represent, formally or informally, that their product or service is connected with, supervised by, or performed by a county employee.

Related bars follow the same logic. Nothing where the employer is licensed by the county and the department would have investigative responsibility for them. Nothing where the employer is a county contractor. And nothing using county time, property, tools, records, confidential information, vehicles or buildings.

There is a narrow escape valve: where the interests and welfare of both the department and the employee would be served, an administrative decision can be made on the circumstances.

Armed work needs the state's permission, not the department's

A distinct provision, and a practical trap. Outside employment is refused where the work requires permissions or legal authorisations specifically afforded to public safety personnel that the employee does not actually hold.

The example given is precise: a member who must be armed for the outside job but does not possess a carry concealed weapons permit or an exposed firearms permit issued by the state's consumer affairs department.

So being a sworn deputy is not itself the qualification for armed private work. The state license is — the same distinction San Jose draws when it requires a guard card for plain-clothes work.

Injury, leave and getting back to it

Outside work is prohibited during medical or family leave of absence. The exception is narrow and humane: family leave taken to care for a relative for whom the employee already receives in-home supportive services compensation, or where they are legally obliged to provide it.

For sick leave, injury or limited duty, the approval may be suspended until the employee provides medical certification that the outside work will not make their injury or illness worse.

And the requirement can outlast the recovery. On returning to full duty, a unit commander may still ask for written authorisation from an appropriate medical authority stating that the outside activity will not aggravate the injury or prolong recovery.

Military leave is expressly protected. Nothing in the policy limits or denies it for employees enlisted in the armed forces.