St. Mary's County Sheriff and secondary employment

There is a list, and your job may already be on it

Every other agency in this section answers the approval question one officer at a time. St. Mary's County keeps the answers.

The Office maintains three standing lists — approved off-duty employment, approved extra-duty employment, and secondary employment that is not approved. They are held on the Office dashboard and they apply to every member. A deputy considering a job starts by reading them.

Only if the employer appears on neither list does a request go in, through the chain of command to the Sheriff or Assistant Sheriff. Whatever comes back is added to the appropriate list, so the next deputy to consider that employer already has the answer.

Two details make it work. No member's identifying information appears on any list — the lists are about employers, not about who asked. And when a status changes, an email goes to every member of the agency, with the policy stating plainly that it is then the member's responsibility to know where their own employer stands.

It is a genuinely different design. A refusal at most agencies is a private answer to one officer. Here it becomes institutional knowledge, and an approval can be withdrawn from everyone at once.

The clock depends on how long your shift is

The hour rule is the most schedule-dependent in this section, and it is worth working through slowly.

On a duty day, a member scheduled to work a shift of less than ten hours may work no more than six hours of secondary employment.

A member scheduled to work ten hours or more may not work any secondary employment before that shift unless there is a full eight-hour break between the end of the secondary work and the start of the duty day.

So the same deputy has two different rules depending on which rotation they are on. Move from eights to tens and a detail that was allowed becomes one that needs an eight-hour gap in front of it.

And the definition of “duty day” reaches further than the roster. It includes any pre-scheduled overtime — court, special assignments, or any preplanned overtime or compensatory time worked before or after a duty day. A court appearance booked next week changes what may be worked the night before it.

There is no time restriction at all on days off.

They can ask to see your finances

Before approving off-duty employment, the Office may require a member to provide personal financial records for review, where the Sheriff determines that a conflict of interest may exist.

It does not stop at approval. If information later comes to light suggesting a financial conflict, the Office may ask for those records then too — and failure or refusal to provide them may itself result in the approval being revoked or suspended.

Nothing else in this section goes near this. Baltimore investigates the employer. UT System publishes a character test the employer must pass. St. Mary's County reserves the right to look at the member's own finances.

The prohibitions it protects are drawn from the state ethics regulations: no work for an entity subject to the member's own authority, none for a contractor or subcontractor with the Office or anyone negotiating a contract with it, and nothing that would impair the member's impartiality or independent judgement. Work whose product might later be subject to the control, inspection, review, audit or enforcement of another member of the Office is out for the same reason.

A refusal comes with a reason, and an appeal

A denial is delivered in writing with the reason, at the time of the denial. So is a revocation or a suspension.

The member may then appeal to the Sheriff, through the chain of command, within ten days of receiving notice.

Set that against UT System Police, which publishes its criteria openly and then states there is no right of appeal at all. Murray, running the same underlying manual, offers the same ten-day appeal and a grievance after it. Whether an officer can argue about the answer is not a settled question across American policing — it varies by employer, and it is worth knowing which kind you work for.

Approval may be suspended where a supervisor decides performance is slipping and the secondary work may be related to it — and it can be reinstated once performance recovers, with the supervisor's authorisation and written notice. Members on administrative leave or restricted duty are barred pending the Sheriff's approval, and the immediate supervisor reviews the duties of the outside job against any medical or administrative orders before recommending. Returning to full duty restores the approval automatically.

Probationary deputies may not work secondary employment until field training is complete.

Conceal the badge

The two categories are separated by whether police powers are anticipated. Extra-duty employment anticipates them — security work, money escorts, close protection. Off-duty employment does not, and the policy's own examples are a sports coach and a photographer. Paid or volunteer fire and EMS service counts as off-duty employment. Military reserve and National Guard service is not secondary employment at all.

Working extra duty, a deputy restricts themselves to security-related duties and does not perform the day-to-day functions of the business. Body-worn cameras are worn and used exactly as on duty.

Working off duty, the requirement runs the other way: deputies conceal their weapons, if armed, and their badges. The badge is not to be visible in a job that has nothing to do with policing.

The agency vehicle may be used only as transport to and from the job. The policy's example is memorable — a deputy employed by a florist may not make deliveries in it, and it may not be used to serve civil process. The exception is security work genuinely requiring vehicular patrol, or a situation where an arrest arises from the job.

One further line addresses a real temptation, and does it plainly: while on duty, a member shows no preferential coverage to a place of secondary employment, and will not encourage on-duty deputies to visit one. Agency and criminal justice systems may not be used for secondary employment work — the example given is that serving civil process cannot involve looking up addresses in agency databases.

Who may work a bar depends on what you are

Deputies may be approved to work at businesses that sell or dispense alcohol, provided that is not the primary service of the business.

Where alcohol is the primary service, the position splits by role. Professional staff and correctional officers may be permitted to work there with the Assistant Sheriff's approval. Deputy sheriffs may not.

That is the only role-split of its kind we have found. Elsewhere a venue is either open to the agency or closed to it. Here the same bar is available to some members of the same office and not to others, and the line falls exactly where police authority does.

Deputies are separately barred from directly selling or dispensing alcohol, and from acting in a bouncer capacity — the same prohibition Orlando and Overland Park write down.

Off-duty work as a law enforcement officer, private security officer, guard or private investigator is governed by state law rather than by the Office's preference, and the policy cites the statute.

If you are hurt, it may cost you the job

The liability section is the shortest in the policy and the most serious thing in it.

An injury or illness arising from secondary or extra-duty employment is, in certain circumstances, not compensable by the county. Members have only their personal or job insurance, and county sick and vacation leave, to rely on for income while ill or injured. County public schools, county fairs and fire and rescue functions are excluded from that.

Then the sentence worth reading twice: serious illness or injury caused by secondary employment may result in being disqualified to continue county employment. Each case is considered on its own facts.

Across this section the injury consequences run from Orlando, where city-paid extra duty is treated as though on duty for workers' compensation, through New Castle County's flat no-workers'-comp, to Philadelphia, where an officer injured in outside employment may not even use accrued sick leave. St. Mary's County goes one step beyond all of them: the injury can end the career.

Sick leave is fenced accordingly. No secondary employment during the entire 24-hour period in which any part was taken as sick leave — though not time worked before the sick leave began that day, and not where the leave was for a planned medical appointment. Family sick leave is treated differently and humanely: using it during a shift does not stop the member working secondary employment once that shift has ended. Continuous family and medical leave, disability leave and administrative leave all bar it outright.