Fellow members,

As many of you know Eric, Derek, and I met with the Chief yesterday in regards to the new off-duty policy. Our main concern was the elimination of our 10-99 jobs. The policy refers to a general statute that restricts police officers from working as independent contractors. This is true and we cannot work as an independent contractor as a police officer. The point we argued is that being paid under 10-99 status does not make you an independent contractor. After seeking the advice from numerous tax attorneys and city attorneys it is clear that there are about 35-40 different criteria to determine if you are an employee of the business or if you are an independent contractor. If you are paid 10-99 that is only one indicator that you may be working as an independent contractor but there are many others that clearly show we are employees of the off-duty employer. I believe, as do many of the attorneys we sought counsel from, that the most important and obvious way to determine the answer is to refer to the contract we have with the off-duty employer. In our contract it clearly defines our role as an employee of the off-duty employer. We made these and numerous other points to Chief Dolan. He stated that he will permit officers to work 10-99 jobs when he gets this clarified with the city attorney. I am confident that we should get a final answer within the week and that the response will be in our favor.

Our next issue was the restriction of working off-duty six hours prior to working our scheduled shift. We offered a recommendation of having six consecutive hours off during any given work day beginning at midnight and ending at midnight. Chief Sholar did make a good point that an officer could potentially work 36 hours straight with that policy in place. While the vast majority of officers would not work that many hours straight there are probably a few that would. I do not believe the Chief will heed our recommendation.

Our next meeting is Wednesday, March 4, 2009, 7:00 p.m. at the Teamster Union Hall.

Thanks for your support.

Rick Armstrong