Plano Police and secondary employment

Three categories, one ceiling

Plano splits the work three ways. Extra-duty police employment is offered through the department and conditioned on the use of law enforcement powers. Secondary employment is other paid work by a sworn officer where the duties could give rise to those powers. Non-law enforcement outside employment is everything else, including self-employment, with volunteer charity work expressly excluded.

All three count against one limit: no more than 16 hours in any 24-hour period combined with regular duty.

And the workday cannot be split. An officer may not leave their regular police duties for a detail and then return to police duties the same day.

Non-police outside employment is authorized annually, due by 1 January. Officers also have to read and acknowledge the directive itself each year before any approval is granted — a small requirement, but one that stops the rules becoming something signed once and forgotten.

Not there to enforce house rules

The line most policies gesture at, Plano states outright: sworn employees shall not enforce company policies or any rules — commonly known as house rules — outside the scope of their official law enforcement duties while working a detail.

Two related protections sit alongside it. An officer arriving at an assignment and finding that performing it would breach the directive must notify the on-duty watch commander immediately. And anything arising from the work that might reflect badly on the department goes to the Chief in writing through the chain of command.

Officers may not bring friends, relatives or acquaintances to a job without the employer's prior permission, may not work anywhere subject to a labor dispute or strike, and may not work outside the city limits at all.

Brokering is prohibited. No officer may contract to supply other officers, work on commission, or take a percentage of another officer's pay. Coordinating for an employer is permitted only with the responsibilities documented and approved by an assistant chief. And a supervisor may not work a job coordinated by their own subordinate.

Training before bar work

This is the provision we have not found anywhere else. Before working an assignment at premises licensed for alcohol on the state's permit system, an officer must have completed a four-hour standardised field sobriety testing course — initial or refresher — within the past three years.

Other agencies restrict bar work, require approval for it, or ban it outright. Plano makes it conditional on the officer being current in the skill the job most likely calls for.

The approval requirement sits on top: any assignment at a licensed venue, or any business involved in the sale, manufacture or transport of alcohol, needs an assistant chief's sign-off before the officer works there.

Officers are never paid in cash for any assignment.

The courtesy officer, and a database of them

Like Orlando, Plano names the officer who provides security at the apartment complex where they live — and requires that the complex be their primary residence.

The form goes to the Office of the Chief before the work starts and annually thereafter, and moving out means emailing to say the position has ended.

The operationally clever part: the Chief's office maintains a database of every complex employing an officer as a courtesy officer, published where patrol officers can reach it from their vehicles. So a unit responding to an emergency at that address knows an off-duty officer lives there.

Courtesy officer work is confined to the city limits, and an officer may not answer courtesy calls at their own complex while on duty.

Cover, and who handles the arrest

Plano provides workers' compensation and salary continuation for approved off-duty police service — but only where the officer was in the course and scope of police duties, which the directive then defines rather than leaving open.

It covers being injured while enforcing federal or state law, a city ordinance or a department rule, and being injured solely because of the officer's representation as a member of the department. So the security work itself is not covered; acting as a police officer during it is.

On arrests, the division of labor is clean whatever the officer is wearing. An on-duty officer is called to handle the offence report, the transport and everything else connected with the arrest. The officer working the assignment writes a witness statement or supplement as needed and stays with the job.

Plain-clothes assignments need an assistant chief's approval, must serve a genuine community-safety interest rather than only the employer's, and require the officer to call for a uniformed colleague before intervening wherever possible. Where immediate action is unavoidable, they identify themselves both visually and verbally.

A committee that reviews the rates

The professional standards sergeant coordinates extra duty — approving or refusing requests against departmental guidelines and staffing, and watching postings to make sure enough officers remain available for actual duty.

Above that sits something unusual: a secondary employment steering committee of five employees drawn from a cross-section of the department, appointed annually by the Chief and chaired by a lieutenant. It monitors the posting procedures, recommends changes, and reviews the rates for posted assignments every year.

Most agencies set rates by command decision. Plano puts serving officers in the room where that happens.

Dropping an assignment works on a 72-hour line. More than 72 hours ahead, release it through the portal. Inside 72 hours, transfer it — and you remain responsible until another officer accepts. Where that is not possible, the officer contacts the scheduling company to be released and the job is re-posted.