Join The Podcast Join The Podcast

24/7/365 Service & Support (877) 636-8300

Are you looking for areas to reduce your expenses?

by | Apr 6, 2022 | Blog | 0 comments

 

Are you looking for areas to reduce your expenses?

Law enforcement budgets are shrinking for many agencies across the country, making it essential that agencies look at different ways to reduce costs. In-house agency management or administration of off-duty work can be a significant burden on your agency’s budget, resources, and insurance. The good news is there is a no-cost program available that can help your agency reduce most costs and allow you to re-deploy these expenses towards more critical policing activities. Several agencies have already eliminated 85% or more of their off-duty program costs and resources by partnering with OFF DUTY MANAGEMENT to assist with the management of their centrally administered programs.

The expenses associated with running an off-duty program come from a variety of different components, including purchasing a software package, maintenance fees, licensing fees, hiring additional staff to run the program, payroll processing, collections, hiring attorneys to review contracts and legal paperwork, and workers’ compensation coverage. When an agency manages its off-duty program in-house, they are solely responsible for the management and all associated costs for execution and maintenance of the program along with bearing all insurance and workers’ compensation costs. This is not viewed favorably by taxpayers across the country and may result in an agency having to charge an exorbitant administrative fee to cover all the costs.

This can be an overwhelming feat for some small to mid-size agencies as this takes resources away from other critical policing activities. In many cases, officers are pulled from off-the-street policing to working in the office to administer the scheduling, posting and awarding of jobs, sending out invoices to vendors, and tracking down late payments. Agency in-house program management also affects the finance department as they have increased responsibilities for circulating off-duty checks to officers and filing off-duty payroll taxes, which may require additional staffing needs.

An agency must decide to have some sort of centrally administered program to protect the city and officers from the significant liability that accompanies secondary jobs. Maintaining the status quo is not an option for most agencies given the significant cost and risk related to their current program administration. Year-to-date in 2020, over 40 agencies appeared in news headlines for issues related to their off-duty programs. These cases are costing agencies millions in litigation costs, in addition to the significant expense of running their program.

As a result of the current challenges and costs associated with secondary employment, many agencies across the country are beginning to evaluate the feasibility and fiscal responsibility of keeping their off-duty program in-house or utilizing other third party service options to save the agency’s valuable time, money, and resources. The most effective option is using OFF DUTY MANAGEMENT to assist in the administration of all aspects of the agency’s off-duty program. Not only does this relieve almost all the risk and liability for the agency but it substantially reduces the agency’s costs and resources needed to support a centrally administered program.

Is your agency feeling a liability strain?
There are several ways OFF DUTY MANAGEMENT can support an agency. Our services and software are fully customizable to meet the specific needs of each agency. The most comprehensive and cost-effective option ensures the agency always maintains full control of their program. ODM handles all aspects of administering and reporting for the program. This would include reviewing vendor job requests against agency policies, publishing jobs, providing app technology simplifying the entire process, paying officers weekly, floating funds, handling vendors invoicing and collections, and providing insurance coverages, including statutory workers’ compensation. The agency has little or no financial risk or liability as ODM assumes the financial and monetary risk related to payments and collections. By letting ODM handle these tasks, the agency saves considerable amounts of time, money, and resources that can be redeployed elsewhere. In most instances, an agency will save over 85% of their current costs and resources.

Another option when partnering with ODM is we administer the program but allow the agency to pay officers directly. ODM handles all the job posting, invoicing, weekly payment of funds to the city for payroll distribution, floating money, vendor billing and invoicing, and comprehensive liability insurance. WCI is not included in this option. This option will still reduce costs and increase resources for the agency, although the agency will continue to be involved in payroll, payroll taxes, and providing officer workers compensation coverage for off-duty work.

The least favorable option would be to not allow off-duty work or completely discontinue the off-duty program. Although this would save the agency money and resources, this would have a negative effect on the community and officers. With the available cost-saving options, liability reduction and risk mitigation that ODM offers, discontinuing or not having an off-duty program is no longer necessary consideration or option.

Off Duty Management offers customizable services to agencies to help alleviate their cost burden and increase resources that they can allocate to other policing efforts. We can save over 85% of the current costs related to administering your off-duty program. Now is the time to take advantage of learning more about these options and how you can help recover some of the budget shortfalls that you may be facing during these challenging times. ODM was built by officers for officers and we understand the challenges that are involved with running a highly efficient, centrally administered program. That is why we created a NO-COST solution for agencies to eliminate all of their off-duty program headaches. We are here to help you protect your officers, city, and community with secondary employment.

Please call us at 877-636-8300 or visit www.offdutymanagement.com and request more information.