UAB Police and special detail work

A price list, published as a memo

UAB Police and Public Safety publishes its rates once a year in a memorandum addressed to deans, directors and department heads. The current one is dated 15 September 2025 and covers the fiscal year running from 21 September 2025 to 19 September 2026.

It is a short document, and that is what makes it useful: the whole price of an officer's hour is on one page, signed by the chief of police.

What an hour costs, by rank

Special detail overtime rates run: sergeant $108, corporal $88, FTO or police officer $71, security officer $42.50 per hour.

The spread is worth noticing. A sergeant costs half as much again as an officer, and the security officer rate is under two thirds of the officer rate — a genuinely different product at a genuinely different price, which is rare to see set out so plainly.

There is a minimum charge of four hours for any special detail assignment, matching Palm Beach and above the three hours common elsewhere. Cancellations must be made 24 hours in advance.

Internal billing has its own rule: requests made using UAB accounts are processed automatically unless a dispute is raised within three days of the invoice.

The car is its own line item

Vehicles are charged per unit: $150 for a UAB client, $250 for a non-UAB client.

Two things follow. First, the patrol car is priced as a thing in its own right rather than folded into the officer's rate — Hillsborough is the only other agency here that separates the vehicle out, and it does so by charging engine hours.

Second, the same car costs a hundred dollars more if the customer is from outside the university. The rate card quietly encodes who the department is for.

You cannot ask for a sergeant

This is the line that reverses the usual arrangement, and it is stated twice.

The rank of the officer assigned to a special detail depends on availability and cannot be requested. And the use of a security officer cannot be requested either — the Special Detail Commander assigns one where it is appropriate or allowable.

Everywhere else in this section the customer's request drives the staffing, and the department layers supervision on top: Palm Beach adds a sergeant at five deputies, Brevard at five and a lieutenant at ten, Hillsborough scales marked cars to the length of a funeral procession. At UAB the customer states the need and the department decides who fills it — including whether the job warrants a sworn officer at all.

For an officer, that means detail work here is assigned rather than claimed. There is no bidding for the better-paid post.

Beyond details

The same memo prices two other things, which shows how the department sits inside the university.

Departments needing a permanent, full-time security officer post within their unit pay $28.54 an hour on campus; hospital units are quoted separately. And routine services are listed at the counter price: fingerprints at $20 for employees, students and staff, $25 for external persons, and police reports at $5.

A university police department is partly an internal service provider, and this memo is what that looks like on paper.

What this page cannot tell you

This is a rate card, not a policy. It does not say how an officer is approved for detail work, what hour caps apply, which employers are refused, or what happens after sick leave — that will sit in UAB's own directives, which are not published in the same place.

What it does answer is the question officers ask first and departments rarely publish: what does an hour of this work actually cost, and what does the car cost on top?

The rates also carry their own expiry — they run to 19 September 2026, after which a new memo replaces them.

Common questions

What does a UAB officer cost on a special detail?

Seventy-one dollars an hour, with a four-hour minimum charge.

Is the patrol car charged separately?

Yes, the vehicle is priced as its own unit rather than folded into the hourly rate.

Can a customer request a particular officer?

No. The department refuses to let the customer pick who works the detail.