Many law enforcement agencies in Louisiana had informed their employees that the Municipal Police Officers Supplemental Pay Board of Review had decided to begin sending a lump sum each month to the various law enforcement agencies around Louisiana whose employees receive Police and Marshal Supplemental Pay starting January 1, 2024. Those municipalities would then be responsible for disbursing the funds owed to each employee entitled to receive Police and Marshal Supplemental Pay.
In short, implementation of the new distribution plan will be delayed to the start of Louisiana’s next fiscal year. The letter states that will be July 31, 2024. As a result, all law enforcement employees who receive Louisiana Police and Marshal Supplemental Pay will continue to receive those payments as usual until July 31, 2024.
For those who are interested, this was made possible by Louisiana Act No. 637, which started out as HB 918, Supplemental Pay for Certain Law Enforcement Officers introduced by State Representative William “Bill” Wheat, Jr., a Republican representing Tangipahoa Parish. Louisiana Act. No. 637 changed La. R.S. 33:2218.4, which required the Secretary of Public Safety and Corrections to write and sign a check for supplemental pay to each recipient to La. R.S. 40:1667.3(B) only states that “the Department of Public Safety and Corrections shall issue payments in accordance with the privisions of this Part.” The statute governing payment of State Supplemental Pay no longer states how it is to be distributed. Therefore, it can be sent to the municipality instead of directly to the officer entitled to the payment.
There will be times when the FOP will send you an email or text message asking you to send an email to your elected representatives regarding legislation that the FOP has decided it is in favor of or opposed to. Normally, it only takes a couple of clicks to send an email to your elected representatives because we use a service called Voter Voice. Voter Voice prepares an email for you. You can edit the email if you want. Voter Voice will then send the email to the proper recipients. So, even if you are not sure who your elected officials are, you can contact them using Voter Voice. Be on the lookout for emails regarding legislation and the use of Voter Voice. The number of people Legislators receive phone calls and emails from on certain issues can be the determining factor in how the elected representative votes on that issue.
The Louisiana FOP also hired a lobbyist several years ago to represent our interest in Baton Rouge. Joe Mapes of Mapes and Mapes is the lobbyist for the Louisiana FOP and does an excellent job for us. Hopefully, Joe will be around to help us for quite a while.
You can also check on the Louisiana FOP’s legislative priorities on its website at www.louisianafop.com. In New Orleans, Crescent City Lodge #2 often discuss important legislative issues in its newsletters. If you are an FOP member who is interested in being part of the Legislative Committee for your Lodge or for the State Lodge, talk to your Lodge Officers and they should be able to fill you in.
This article contains profane language. If you are offended by profane language, you may want to skip this one. I do not want to offend anyone.
If you have never heard of Will Aitchison, he is an attorney who specializes in police (public safety) legal issues whose company, Labor Relations Information System (LRIS), is in the northwestern part of the United States. Will also puts on seminars for public safety employees, professionals, attorneys, etc. on important issues. For example, LRIS just put on a seminar titled the Advanced Course in Police Discipline and Public Safety Union Leadership in Las Vegas this past November (2023) and will put on a seminar titled Public Safety Union Leadership at the beginning of 2024 in Las Vegas. January and February are good months to be in Las Vegas. Will has also published a number of books, including Interest Arbitration, the Rights of Law Enforcement Officers, the FLSA, a User’s Manual, and other handy books. Finally, Will publishes a podcast once a month that can be found on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Podcasts can also be found on the LRIS website.
I appreciate “Fuck: The Police.” I also appreciate Will for letting those of us who were unaware of the study know about it. There are many law enforcement agencies with policies seeking to forbid profanity altogether. The current policies represent a sea change from the previous notion of including profanity in what was known as “Verbal Judo” — a hands-off way of controlling a situation through words. “Verbal Judo” has fallen out of favor, and more agencies are opting to forbid profanity, which is often recorded on all the cameras law enforcement officers carry while working.
I have handled plenty of cases in different agencies for officers accused of using profanity in the course of an officer’s duties. In the New Orleans Police Department, if an officer uses profanity, it is a violation of Rule 2, Moral Conduct, Paragraph 2, Courtesy, which reads “Employees shall be courteous, civil and respectful in their conduct toward all persons. The use of profane, vulgar, or discourteous gestures or language to or in the presence of any citizen is prohibited. The use of profane, vulgar or discourteous gestures or language either verbal or written by one employee to another employee is prohibited.” Sometimes, they use Rule 3, Professional Conduct, Paragraph 1, Professionalism, which reads “Employees shall conduct themselves in a professional manner with the utmost concern for the dignity of the individual with whom they are interacting. Employees shall not unnecessarily inconvenience or demean any individual or otherwise act in a manner which brings discredit to the employee or the New Orleans Police Department.” Sometimes, an officer could end up charged with both violations, which seems like piling on to me. I represented an officer at a different agency who was charged with Conduct Unbecoming an Officer for using profanity in the car by himself. I have had several cases in New Orleans where officers were charged with one or both of the above violations for using profanity in a police car alone because it was recorded by the in-car camera and someone might see it, or it might have to be presented to a jury. It all seems pretty crazy.
Personally, I think an officer’s use of profanity can be appropriate. At the same time, I do not think officers should ever try to denigrate another person while acting on behalf of his or her agency. Officers should also refrain from attempting to (or successfully) belittle someone while he or she is off duty and there is a nexus between the officer’s action(s) and the officer’s employing agency — officers can be disciplined for that even if he or she is not working at the time.
Anyway, officers are adult men and women who live in our community. I believe they can tell the difference between when it is appropriate to use profane language. For example, it is appropriate to use profane language when the starting quarterback for the Saints is injured during a game. I also firmly believe that our adult police officers who live in our community know when they are too tired to do their jobs and need a nap. Telling officers they are not allowed to work more than 16 hours and 35 minutes in any 24-hour period is ridiculous. They know when they are too tired. I know that when I was a police officer, there were days when I had to work for 16 hours and then go home and pick up kids from school, go shopping, cook dinner, or do other work at home. All the policy really does is tell officers they can only be paid for 16 hours and 35 minutes per day.
To make matters worse, there is an adult who may or may not be a member of our community who is constantly requesting payroll records for our adult police officers and subsequently making complaints on our adult police officers for working too much. In the United States of America, we encourage hard workers. The vast majority of these complaints have been based on mistakes made by the officer, the officer’s supervisor, the Office of Police Secondary Employment, and other human beings. If there is one thing I am certain of, human beings regularly make mistakes and will continue to do so. I am also sure that the complaints being made on police officers every day about working off-duty paid details are about nothing but harassment and the investigations waste hours and hours of time of the officers required to investigate these unfounded, harassing complaints as well as the accused officer and any witness officers required to participate. Please stop wasting everyone’s time. Nobody is double-dipping or stealing from secondary employment employers. You are not an investigative reporter or any kind of watchdog.
I know I ranted a little and definitely drifted off-topic above. I am going to assume that you, the reader, will grant me the rant and off-topic content. It took me at least an hour longer than I wanted to spend writing this because of it. For that, I apologize to my wife. Sorry – I love you.
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