Support Our Officers With Real Accountability

This week I’m breaking down what really happened at the Sept. 8 Woodstock City Council meeting. Yesterday we looked at the “tax shell game.” Today we turn to something smaller on the agenda but bigger in its impact: how Woodstock manages off-duty police work.

What’s Going On

When Woodstock police officers work “off-duty,” it doesn’t mean they’re moonlighting at Publix or running security in plain clothes. They’re still in uniform, carrying city-issued gear, and acting with full police authority.

These extra jobs — called special details — cover things like traffic control, concerts, festivals, or even protest monitoring. Until now, the city handled scheduling and payroll. That meant officers’ pay went through city records and counted toward their pensions.

On Sept. 8, Council voted to outsource this system to a private company called Off Duty Management (ODM). ODM will now handle scheduling, billing, and payments.

Why the City Outsourced

Council gave several reasons:

• Slow pay: Officers sometimes waited weeks or months for their checks because the city had to chase down invoices.

• Pension impact: Some officers added $30–40,000 of off-duty pay to their pensionable earnings last year. Council worried taxpayers would carry that burden for decades.

• Liability: When officers are injured working these jobs, the city has been on the hook. ODM provides its own liability insurance.

• Administration: City staff spend hours managing calls and emails. ODM runs this through an app that makes scheduling easier.

On the surface, outsourcing looks like an easy fix.

Why It Raises Concerns

That doesn’t mean it’s all upside. Outsourcing also creates new problems:

1. Transparency

   • When the city managed payroll, detail records were public.

   • Now those records sit in ODM’s private system. Unless the city requires a public log, residents won’t know who’s hiring officers, how many are deployed, or whether they even showed up.

2. Fairness for Officers

   • Officers are still sworn Woodstock police in full uniform, with city-issued weapons and the authority of the badge.

   • If the work is “official enough” for the uniform, why isn’t it official enough to count toward pensions?

   • The city can’t have it both ways: either these jobs are public service (and should be valued as such) or they are private security (and should not be performed with the authority of the state).

3. Accountability

   • If a problem comes up — say an officer doesn’t appear, or a controversial group hires officers — who’s accountable? The city? The vendor? Or no one?

   • Residents didn’t get to weigh in on this, but they’ll live with the consequences.

The Pension Question

Here’s the balance:

• Why it counted before: Because paychecks came through the city, off-duty hours were treated like official service and added to pensions.

• Why Council stopped it: Adding tens of thousands in pensionable earnings through optional details makes the system more expensive for taxpayers long-term.

Both points have merit. But the heart of the issue is fairness.

If officers are wearing the uniform and acting as police, it’s inconsistent to say that time suddenly “doesn’t count.” And if the city refuses to let it count, then maybe those jobs should no longer be worked in city uniform under city authority.

That’s the debate Woodstock never had out in the open.

What Other Cities Do

Woodstock wasn’t locked into outsourcing. Other Georgia cities have solved this differently:

• In-house systems (Atlanta, Athens, many mid-sized cities): The department runs a special detail unit. Businesses pay the city, the city pays officers. Records stay public, and pensions are consistent.

• Hybrid systems: Some cities use software platforms but keep oversight and records in-house. That means efficiency without giving up transparency.

• Private vendors (like ODM): Less common. Easier on staff, but it removes records from public hands and cuts off pension credit.

Woodstock could have chosen one of the first two options, keeping control and fairness while fixing slow pay with better technology. Instead, Council gave the responsibility away.

Missing Voices

Here’s what else stood out: the people most affected — the officers themselves — weren’t publicly heard.

Woodstock police are not unionized, so there’s no collective voice pushing for fairness. At the Sept. 8 meeting, no officers spoke, and no preference from rank-and-file police was shared. Residents only heard the Council’s side of the story.

If the city is going to change how pensions and pay are handled for sworn officers, the least they can do is let officers publicly weigh in — and explain the tradeoffs to the community.

What Could Have Been Done Instead

This problem didn’t need to be outsourced. It could have been solved in-house with better technology and clearer processes. Many cities already do this with scheduling apps and online billing systems that keep records public while easing staff workloads.

Instead of treating this as an internal challenge, Council handed it off to a private company. That means residents lose transparency, officers lose pension protection, and the city avoids responsibility.

Why It Matters

I’ve said before that I’m anti-MAGA. One reason is that a core piece of MAGA ideology is tearing down public services and turning them over to private entities that can price-gouge and operate without accountability.

What happened here is a local version of that mentality. Not everyone at City Hall is MAGA, but the mindset is clearly present: when faced with a challenge, instead of fixing and strengthening government, they push it out of public hands and into private ones.

That’s not efficiency. That’s abdication. And it leaves residents and officers alike with less fairness, less oversight, and less trust.

The Bigger Transparency Problem

Even bigger than pensions is how little chance the public had to weigh in.

Yes, there was a slot for public comment. But here’s how it works: you have to sign up before the discussion begins. Then the comment period itself happens after staff and council finish their explanation, but right before the vote.

That means if something in the explanation sparks a question or concern, it’s usually too late to raise it. Residents are expected to plan comments in advance, without hearing the full presentation first. And most people aren’t comfortable speaking on budgets or pensions without that context.

That’s why the comment slot went unused. Not because people didn’t care, but because the system is set up in a way that discourages meaningful public input.

What We Should Do Instead

At this point, outsourcing is already approved. But that doesn’t mean the public is powerless.

Here’s what Woodstock should do:

1. Require a public log. ODM already tracks who hires officers, what jobs they work, and how much they’re paid. The city should require those records to be published in plain English so residents can see it.

2. Protect fair pay. Officers deserve timely paychecks and pension protection for true public service. If details are no longer pensionable, then they shouldn’t be performed under the badge and authority of the city.

3. Fix public comment. Let residents sign up after the presentation, so comments can be informed and meaningful instead of pre-scripted.

4. Invite police voices. Officers deserve a say in how their pay and pensions are handled. Residents deserve to hear those perspectives too.

Public safety isn’t a side hustle. It’s a public promise. If officers are serving in our name and in our uniforms, then residents deserve transparency, officers deserve fairness, and taxpayers deserve clarity on what we’re paying for.

See for yourself:

• Meeting agendas & packets: https://www.woodstockga.gov/your_government/meetings_agendas_and_minutes.php

• Full Sept. 8 Council meeting video: https://woodstockga.granicus.com/player/clip/522?view_id=1&redirect=true