Newport News Police and secondary employment

The two words run backwards here

Anyone comparing agencies needs to read the definitions before the rules, and Newport News is the clearest demonstration of why.

Here, secondary employment is the work that requires the use, or potential use, of police powers — the detail, the traffic post, the uniformed job. Off-duty employment is everything else: work that needs no police authority and is not administered by the coordinator at all.

That is the reverse of Florida Highway Patrol, where secondary employment is the broad category and the police work is the subset inside it. It is also the reverse of Overland Park, where off-duty employment means security work and secondary employment means everything else.

Same two phrases, three agencies, three different meanings. An officer moving between departments, or reading another agency's policy for guidance, can get this exactly wrong. The word to trust is never the label — it is the definition printed underneath it.

The authority itself comes from state law: the Code of Virginia and the city ordinance give the Chief the power to regulate this work, and the policy opens by saying so.

The department bills, not the officer

The secondary employer pays the Newport News Police Department for services rendered, at minimum rates set by the Chief of Police and printed on the employer's application form.

Unless something else is negotiated, payment is required for a minimum of three hours per assigned officer, even where the event runs shorter than scheduled. Columbus pays a three-hour show-up fee from the employer directly; Newport News builds the same floor into what the department charges.

Rank is priced honestly. The supervisory minimum rates apply only when the person is actually serving in a supervisory capacity — a sergeant working an ordinary post is paid at the officer rate. But if any part of the assignment is spent supervising, the supervisory rate applies to the whole of it.

One thing worth knowing before anyone plans around it: income earned through secondary employment is not included in retirement calculations or other City benefits.

Court time is not the customer's bill

If a detail produces a court appearance, the Department compensates the officer for the court time where it arises from the exercise of police powers — and the policy states plainly that this time should not be billed to the secondary employer.

The same principle runs through what happens when police work breaks out. An officer who responds, or is directed by a supervisor to respond, to a call unrelated to the detail reverts to on-duty status and notes the time so compensation can be adjusted. Where the Department requires work past the scheduled end of the assignment — paperwork, processing prisoners — the officer is paid at their regular or overtime rate.

It is a clean division, and it answers the question several other policies leave hanging. The customer buys a block of security presence. The moment the badge is genuinely in use beyond that, the department picks the cost back up.

Officers are expected to take law enforcement action on criminal activity they encounter, to complete any use-of-force or pursuit report before the assignment ends, to transport and process their own prisoners, and to contact an on-duty supervisor immediately after securing a use-of-force scene. They remain subject to emergency call-out throughout.

Site coordinators, and a shift a month

A recurring employer — one needing the same service repeatedly through the year — is assigned a site coordinator, an officer chosen by the Secondary Employment Coordinator who schedules the site and acts as liaison. A one-off event gets no coordinator.

Three limits keep the role from becoming a business. An officer may coordinate no more than two recurring sites. Administrative work may not be done on duty, except in an emergency to find a replacement officer. And any compensated administrative time counts toward the officer's own hour limits — a coordinator cannot be paid for on-duty and secondary work covering the same period.

The requirement worth borrowing is the last one: to stay familiar with the job, a site coordinator must work at least one shift a month at each site they coordinate. Whoever is scheduling the post has to stand on it.

Schedules go into the department's secondary employment software before the working week begins — by close of business on the Friday beforehand — carrying names, dates, times, total hours, rate of pay and any problems reported.

Brokering is prohibited outright: nobody may take money for referring a job or charge a fee beyond the rate paid to the officers working it.

Your squad can veto the job

This is the sharpest version of the leave question in this section, and it is worth reading twice.

Supervisors reviewing a request for personal leave taken in order to work secondary employment must ensure the squad's minimum staffing is maintained. Staffing during overlap hours does not count toward that minimum. And if overtime is being used to meet minimum staffing, using personal leave to work secondary employment is prohibited.

In plain terms: if the squad is already short enough to be running on overtime, the detail does not happen. The officer's own leave balance is not the deciding factor — the roster is.

There is a separate lock on sick leave, with a worked example in the policy. An officer who uses leave for personal illness may not work a secondary assignment for 24 hours from the end of the shift they missed. Miss a 0730–1530 shift, and nothing until 1530 the next day. Prescheduled medical and dental appointments are excluded.

And none of this work counts as work time: secondary employment is not credited toward overtime.

Who cannot work it, and for how long

Approval runs through the immediate supervisor to the precinct or division commander, and once granted it stands until suspended, revoked or terminated rather than expiring on a date.

The grounds for taking it away are unusually specific. Unsatisfactory performance. Failing to meet the minimum requirements of the officer's own assignment. Being charged with a criminal offence, or a group 2 or group 3 administrative violation, not yet disposed of in the officer's favour. Disciplinary points or counselling for unsatisfactory performance within the preceding six months. Light duty, administrative leave, workers' compensation, or family and medical leave. Excessive tardiness or unexcused absence from secondary assignments themselves.

After a denial for performance reasons that was not part of a disciplinary action, an officer waits three months before reapplying.

That is close to the opposite of Baltimore, where authorized secondary employment is expressly protected from suspension for discipline unless the discipline arose from secondary employment itself. One department treats the income as insulated from unrelated trouble; the other treats access to it as contingent on standing.

Officers must be eligible for independent patrol before working at all. Auxiliary officers are barred entirely; police aides may work approved traffic control at rates the Chief sets.

Cover, and what you may have to arrange yourself

The liability section is blunt, and officers sign to say they have understood it.

Workers' compensation runs under the Virginia Workers' Compensation Act. For injuries sustained outside the scope of law enforcement functions during secondary employment, officers are expected to file their claim against the secondary employer. The policy recommends the officer find out what cover that employer actually provides — and states that where the employer provides none, the officer has the right to obtain cover of their own.

That last sentence is rare. Most policies here tell an officer what is and is not covered. This one tells them that if the answer is nothing, buying their own is the remedy available.

The employer is put on notice of the same issues through their application form, so both sides have seen the position before the first shift.

Bars, parking lots and courtesy officers

Officers may not work inside an establishment selling alcohol for consumption on the premises. Events under a state banquet license are an exception.

Parking lots at such establishments are permitted, on one condition: the business must employ a minimum of two officers on the property at the same time. Columbus sets the same two-officer floor for bar work; Newport News applies it to the car park.

Also prohibited: locations holding a City wrecker or mechanical services contract, private investigation or investigative work for insurers or attorneys, operating or working for a private security business, collection agencies, and bail bonds or bounty hunting. Police work outside the city is barred unless mutual aid has been invoked.

Courtesy officers are expressly permitted — officers living at a complex for reduced or no rent in exchange for security or law enforcement services. It counts as secondary employment and every rule applies, with one carve-out: courtesy officers are exempt from submitting work schedules, since there is no shift pattern to submit. They may still coordinate two recurring sites alongside it.

Supervision is bought by ratio, and only NNPD officers count toward it: every fifth officer working simultaneously must be a supervisor, and where fifteen are needed the third supervisor must be a lieutenant. Private security, deputies and officers from other jurisdictions do not count.