Oklahoma City and extra-duty work

Two kinds of second job, and only one needs permission

The manual defines the split by what the job turns on. Extra-duty employment is any off-duty work that is conditioned by the wearing of the police uniform or the actual or potential use of law enforcement powers. Outside employment is everything else — no uniform, no police powers, real or implied.

The consequence is the cleanest two-tier system in this section. Extra-duty work requires written permission and under no circumstances may an officer begin before it is granted. Outside work requires only that the officer file a notice with their supervisor on the approved form — prior approval is not needed.

One detail in the definition is easy to miss and catches people out: extra-duty employment expressly includes volunteering or charity work where the uniform or police powers are the reason you are wanted. Working a church car park in uniform for nothing is still extra duty, and still needs the form.

And the department cannot be your second employer twice over: secondary employment cannot be worked where the employer is The City of Oklahoma City. A public trust is not the City for this purpose, even where the City is the beneficiary of the trust.

The list of what will not be approved

Fifteen categories, and most of them are the familiar ones — collecting bills or cheques, process serving, bail bonding, repossession, eviction notices, towing, or any other employment in which police authority might tend to be used to collect money or merchandise for private purposes. Surveillance for a private investigative agency is out; a private detective agency is out except for straightforward security work against theft, burglary or robbery.

Then the ones that are particular to here. Domestic difficulties are named as a category of their own. So is any person or entity in a labor dispute or a political or ideological controversy where taking the job could read as the Department endorsing or condemning a side. So are contractors doing business with the City, under the city charter.

On drugs the reach goes further than anywhere else in this section: no sale, manufacture, cultivation or distribution of marijuana or any Schedule I drug under federal law — and no CBD or hemp products either. Chicago bans the cannabis industry and Pennsylvania reaches medical marijuana caregiver status; Oklahoma City is the only one that names hemp and CBD, which are legal to sell in ordinary shops.

Alcohol is drawn tightly too. Not merely a ban where alcohol is the principal business, but employment in any capacity, in or upon premises licensed as a tavern, club or retail liquor store. Gambling establishments, pornographic and sexual-services businesses, and any employer requiring access to police records as a condition of the job are all barred.

One prohibition is about the uniform rather than the industry: permission will not be granted if the employer requests a police uniform and the task requested is not of a police nature. The uniform is not decor.

This agency1,097

Median of the 48682

Largest here33,721

One of 48 city departments here with a traced figure. Each number is what that agency itself publishes, so some are authorized strength and some are actual headcount — useful for scale, not an exact comparison.

Getting approved, and renewing twice a year

The application goes in at least twenty-four hours before the job, in original and copy, to the Division Commander. If the Division Commander is unavailable it goes to the Shift Captain; if the Shift Captain cannot be reached, to the officer's immediate supervisor. Where there is genuinely not enough time and no direct contact has been made, telephone approval through the chain of command is allowed.

Continuing work at the same business is not approved once and forgotten. An application must be resubmitted for renewal by 1 January and 1 July each year — and separately whenever the officer's on-duty assignment, days off or hours change, or whenever the extra-duty hours or days change. Twelve-month approvals are the norm elsewhere; this is every six months, plus every time either schedule moves.

Extra-duty work paid by the City needs no application at all. The officer contacts whoever schedules that particular city-paid job and asks. It is the only route here that skips the form.

Denial is fenced in: it will not be used as a means of discipline, and in general should follow only from the terms of the directives not being met. Work outside the city limits is a different matter — that request goes to the Chief of Police, and being outside the corporate limits is itself listed as a ground on which permission may be refused.

The hour caps are built around the shift pattern

Most agencies publish one weekly number. Oklahoma City publishes three, and two of them depend on how long your shifts are.

Sixteen hours in any twenty-four, counting on-duty and off-duty work together. On a scheduled day off, an extra-duty shift still may not take the day past sixteen hours.

Then the cycle caps. An officer working eight-hour shifts may work no more than 70 hours across their five scheduled workdays. An officer working ten-hour shifts may work no more than 112 hours across their eight scheduled workdays. Both figures combine on-duty and off-duty work. Florida Highway Patrol caps its troopers at 72 hours a week flat; here the ceiling moves with the roster, which is the more honest way to write it and the harder one to check.

Compensatory or vacation time may be used to reduce City work hours so that the equivalent hours can be worked at extra-duty jobs — the opposite of Philadelphia, which bans using leave to free up time for outside work.

Two things sit behind the numbers. An officer on any kind of extra-duty or outside employment is subject to call-out in an emergency and may be expected to leave the job. And permission can be revoked where a supervisor documents that the second job has harmed on-duty performance — with the improvement period the supervisor sets capped at 60 days.

If you take police action, the pay changes hands

This is the part worth reading twice, because almost no other agency in this section spells it out.

An officer working extra duty is required to take immediate action to protect life and property, and to respond to crimes in progress. If an officer takes police action, the officer shall be presumed to be within the scope and course of their employment as an Oklahoma City Police Officer. New York does the reverse — a member working security there relinquishes the power and authority conferred by state law.

And then the money moves. If the police action is such that the officer cannot carry on with the extra-duty job, they are considered on duty and compensated under the current FOP contract — and the officer must document that compensation from the secondary employer ceased at the point city compensation began. A defined handover, mid-shift, with a paper trail.

The clean-up is not theirs either: reports for offences at an extra-duty location are the responsibility of the transporting or booking on-duty officer, and prisoners are transported by on-duty officers. Chicago arrives at the same arrangement from the opposite direction, by making the responding on-duty officer the arresting officer.

Officers working extra duty will not enforce company policies or house rules — only city ordinances, state statutes and federal law. And an integrity control that appears nowhere else here: any extra-duty arrest for Interfering with Official Process must be accompanied by a companion charge and approved by a supervisor. An arrest for nothing but obstructing the officer, at a job the officer is being paid to work, cannot stand alone.

Injury: the answer depends on what you were doing

State law makes the secondary employer liable for an injury occurring during the hours of that employment. From there the manual splits it precisely.

Injured while working for the secondary employer and not performing a law enforcement activity: state law prohibits the City from covering it under workers' compensation. Injured while working for the secondary employer and performing a law enforcement activity: the City will cover it.

So the officer is told plainly to check that their secondary employer carries workers' compensation insurance covering them for everything that is not police work. New York makes the same check the member's own responsibility; Newport News tells officers to buy their own cover.

There is a presumption attached, and it is generous. Where an officer is injured acting to prevent loss of life, serious injury, loss of property or the commission of a crime, or to make an arrest, the action is presumed within the scope of their City employment whether or not they were also employed by someone else at the time — unless the City Council determines otherwise under the Governmental Tort Claims Act.

One practical consequence: where an injury goes in as a workers' compensation claim against the secondary employer, sick leave may only be used to make up the difference between the temporary total disability benefit and the officer's salary.

The patrol car may go, but it may not move

A department vehicle may be driven to and from an approved extra job that requires law enforcement duties, by an officer in Class A or B uniform or the attire the department mandates.

What happens next is the distinctive rule: the vehicle may be used during that employment only in a fixed-post capacity. Use in a patrolling or moving capacity is prohibited unless the Chief of Police or a designee authorises it in advance.

It is a third answer to a question most agencies answer with two. Houston allows the take-home car to and from and lets an officer sit in it for shelter; St. Mary's County allows it as transport and no more; King County encourages borrowing a marked car. Oklahoma City lets the car work the job — parked.

Two related rules. A sworn employee shall not drive a marked police vehicle to or from a job as a security guard employed by a private security agency, which carves the private security industry out of the permission entirely. And officers must remove all firearms from department vehicles while off duty unless actively working an extra-duty job.

Nothing may be used to run the second job from the department's side of the line: no department telephones, equipment or facilities in furtherance of the employment, and no scheduling of off-duty work or making arrangements while on duty or on department equipment, except with the Chief's approval.

Eight officers changes what the job is

An officer below the rank of Captain must get Division or Bureau Commander approval before agreeing to arrange off-duty officers for a job needing eight or more of them — whether or not the venue is City-owned.

The Commander then decides how many supervisors the job needs and at what rank, and a Lieutenant or above must be assigned to it. The supervisor's function is stated: to take command should any police action become necessary. The officer arranging it must declare on the application whether they are themselves included and what duties they will perform.

And a hard stop: if a permit is required for the event and no permit has been issued, the event will not be worked by extra-duty officers.

Some venues need sign-off whatever the headcount. Working a shopping center, a mall, or any location where a private club, liquor store or bar is located needs written permission from the officer's Bureau Chief first. Directing traffic by voice, hand or signal needs separate written approval — form PD-137 to the Uniform Support Division, which goes to the City Traffic Engineer for a recommendation before final approval. A traffic post here is signed off by a civil engineer.

Security work carries a licensing question too. Employees wanting extra duty as a security guard, armed security guard or private investigator must comply with the Oklahoma Security Guard and Private Investigator Act. Sworn officers are exempt in three defined situations — broadly, working as an individual or on an individual contract — and otherwise must hold a CLEET license before they are eligible.

What this page cannot tell you

The manual sets the rules and says nothing about the money. There is no published rate for an Oklahoma City extra-duty job here, no administrative fee, and no schedule of what a customer is billed — the officer is paid by the secondary employer except in the City-paid cases and the police-action case above.

It also does not say how jobs are found or handed out. The manual regulates an officer arranging eight or more officers, which implies officers do the arranging, but the mechanism is not described.

Everything here comes from the Operations Manual as updated 15 June 2026. Where a directive carries its own revision date, the secondary employment section was last revised 10/25.

Vehicles

A department vehicle may be driven to and from an approved extra job that requires law enforcement duties, by an officer in Class A or B uniform — and then used on the job only in a fixed-post capacity. Patrolling or moving use is prohibited without the Chief's prior authorisation. It is a third answer where most agencies give two, and it is narrowed again for one industry: a sworn employee may not drive a marked police vehicle to or from a job as a security guard for a private security agency. Firearms must come out of a department vehicle off duty unless an extra-duty job is actively being worked.

Every agency here, side by side on vehicles →

Common questions

Do Oklahoma City officers need permission to work a second job?

For extra-duty work — anything involving the uniform or police powers — yes, and no hour may be worked before it is granted. For outside work with no uniform and no police powers, the officer files a notice with their supervisor and prior approval is not required.

How many hours can an Oklahoma City officer work?

No more than 16 in any 24-hour period, combining on-duty and off-duty work. Officers on eight-hour shifts are capped at 70 hours across their five scheduled workdays; officers on ten-hour shifts at 112 hours across eight.

Can an Oklahoma City officer use a patrol car on an extra-duty job?

It may be driven to and from an approved job requiring law enforcement duties, and used on the job only in a fixed-post capacity — patrolling or moving use needs the Chief's prior authorisation. It may not be driven to a job as a security guard for a private security agency.

Who covers an injury on an extra-duty job?

It depends what the officer was doing. Injured while not performing a law enforcement activity, state law prohibits the City from covering it and the secondary employer is liable. Injured while performing a law enforcement activity, the City covers it under workers' compensation.