Pennsylvania State Police and supplementary employment

A state rule before it is a police rule

Most documents in this section are written by a police department for its own officers. This one is not, quite. Administrative Regulation 4-17 exists to carry out Executive Order 1980-18, the Governor's Code of Conduct, and a Commonwealth management directive — and the final word on a conflict of interest does not belong to the State Police at all.

A request is reviewed by the department's human resource office, the Deputy Commissioner of Administration and Professional Responsibility, and the Office of Chief Counsel. Unless a contract provides otherwise, the Governor's Office of Administration holds final authority for resolving conflict-of-interest disputes, and it can rescind an approval already given. Requests from senior staff, and any request involving political activity, go further still — to the Secretary of Administration.

The word the regulation uses is supplementary employment, and it is drawn wide. It covers any payment, compensation or consideration of any nature for services rendered, whether the work is done inside the Commonwealth or outside it: offices, directorships, salaried work, self-employment, consultant fees, work of short duration such as teaching a college course, and honoraria down to travel and related expenses. Military duty is the one carve-out.

Approval must come before the work starts. Starting early, or carrying on after a refusal or a rescission, is grounds for discipline. And where the two jobs pull against each other, the regulation says plainly which loses: any conflict is resolved in favour of the Department.

No police work, and no security work either

This is the provision that changes what the page is about.

Members are not permitted to serve as magistrates, constables, deputy sheriffs, other law enforcement officers, or in a security guard-related capacity where investigative, arrest or prosecutive action could result from taking part. That removes the entire subject most of this section is concerned with. A Pennsylvania trooper does not work a detail, does not stand a post at a store, and does not pick up shifts with a second agency.

Pennsylvania now has two agencies here reaching that same destination by different routes. Philadelphia prohibits private off-duty police work outright and bills employers for overtime instead. The State Police names the roles and bars them. Illinois points at the statutory definition of a peace officer and lets that do the work; New York lets the work happen and strips the authority.

There is a separate, softer track for civilian employees. An employee's request to serve as a magistrate, constable, deputy sheriff or in any law enforcement capacity is reviewed case by case, weighing the nature of their department work against security risks and conflicts. The flat bar is on members.

What the regulation actually governs, then, is the second job in its ordinary sense — the trade, the business, the rental property, the teaching, the family firm.

This agency4,841

Median of the 51,982

Largest here9,500

One of 5 state agencies here with a traced figure. Each number is what that agency itself publishes, so some are authorized strength and some are actual headcount — useful for scale, not an exact comparison.

Two industries named outright

Alcohol is the first. Members shall not own, hold office in, or be employed by an organisation or establishment which dispenses alcoholic beverages, under a separate field regulation on holding office in a liquor establishment. As with law enforcement work, a civilian employee's request in that industry is judged case by case; for members it is simply out.

The second is more recent and drawn tighter than most. Members shall not own, hold office in, have a financial interest in, or be employed by any organisation, business or establishment which grows, processes, produces or dispenses medical marijuana under Pennsylvania's Medical Marijuana Act, or is otherwise involved in the industry — and the field regulation it points at covers caregiver status as well as employment.

That last part is worth pausing on. Most cannabis prohibitions in this section are about working in the industry. Pennsylvania's also reaches a trooper who registers as a caregiver for a patient, which is not a job at all.

Agencies answer this question differently and all of them in writing: Chicago bans the industry outright, Seattle bars marijuana businesses by name, Louisiana bars particular premises by license class. Pennsylvania bars the industry and the financial interest behind it.

One more that needs no industry: personnel shall not seek or accept supplementary employment with persons or firms with known criminal reputations.

Four hours before your shift, and no weekly ceiling

There is no weekly hour cap in this regulation. Most agencies here set one — twenty hours, thirty-two, sixteen in any twenty-four. Pennsylvania sets a test instead: the total amount of supplementary employment must not interfere with the individual's ability to perform their regularly scheduled department duties properly.

The one hard number sits where fatigue actually bites. Personnel shall not devote more than four hours to supplementary employment immediately before a regularly scheduled work period of 7.5 or 8.0 hours.

It is a different device from the one New York uses. New York fences off the three hours before a tour entirely, so nothing may be worked in them. Pennsylvania allows work right up to the shift but caps how much of it there can be. Both are aimed at the trooper who finishes a second job and goes straight into a patrol car.

Leave is handled in the same spirit. Annual and personal leave should not be used on a recurring basis to free someone from department assignments so they can work elsewhere — though where the outside work is temporary or short in duration, leave may be granted at the discretion of the Troop Commander or Bureau Director.

The remaining limits are the familiar ones, stated plainly: no confidential or restricted information obtained through Commonwealth employment used to further private business; no soliciting work during working hours, at department facilities, or over the Commonwealth network; and no Commonwealth property used in the course of the outside work at all.

Thirty days, or it is approved

This is the provision a trooper should know by heart, and it comes from the collective bargaining agreement rather than from department policy.

A member's request is subject to Article 33, Section 2 of the agreement, which requires a response within 30 days. If no response is provided in that time, the request shall be deemed to be granted.

There is a second, faster clock for a member suspended without pay, who may send a request straight to the human resource manager by the quickest means available and must be told the answer within 14 calendar days. The department's response also goes to the troopers' association — and if it fails to reach the association inside the time limit, the request is again considered approved.

Two agencies here now put a clock on the answer, and both got it the same way. Illinois gives five working days before a trooper may start anyway. Pennsylvania gives thirty, with a fortnight for a suspended member. Washington's state agreement is softer — approval "will not be unreasonably withheld" — which is arguable in a grievance rather than automatic.

A separate request is required for each job sought, even where several are asked for at once, and a new one whenever the duties or hours of either job change substantially. An incomplete or inaccurate form comes back, and the clock waits.

If it is refused

A refusal is not the end of it, but the ten working days that follow demand a decision.

Within 10 working days of being notified, the member must say which of three things they are doing: declining the outside job; taking it and terminating their employment with the State Police; or asking for the decision to be reviewed. A rescinded approval works the same way, with the same three answers.

That second option is stated as procedure rather than as a threat, and it is unusually direct. If you take the job anyway, you submit a letter of resignation or retirement.

Review runs down one of two roads and a member must choose. Either a review by the Governor's Office of Administration, filed on its own form within ten working days and sent by the member themselves, or a grievance under the collective bargaining agreement. Filing both ways is prohibited. Civilian employees have the same fork where a union agreement covers them, and only the Governor's Office route where it does not.

In either case the member may not do the work while the appeal is pending. And when an approved job ends, the Governor's Office of Administration must be told within 30 calendar days through the self-service system.

Your second job may be a public record

The regulation closes on something few of the documents in this section address at all.

Requests, the approvals or refusals given to them, and any attachments are held by the human resource office in a secured file, reachable only by the Commissioner's official designees and only to investigate a possible conflict of interest or to weigh further information about the work.

And then, in a single sentence: supplementary employment requests may be considered public documents under the Pennsylvania Right to Know Act.

So the paperwork is held closely inside the department and may still be disclosable outside it. A trooper filling in the form is not only telling their employer about the second job.

What this page cannot tell you

There are no rates here, no coordinator and no booking system — because there is no detail programme to run one for. That absence is the finding rather than a gap in the document.

Two field regulations are named and not reproduced: the sections on holding office in a liquor establishment and on office or caregiver status in the medical marijuana industry. Members are also told to be guided by the field regulation manual generally when judging whether a job is proper before they ever file the form.

Dual employment — holding two Commonwealth positions at once — is a different process on the same form family: prior approval from the Commissioner for another state agency, a request submitted by that agency, and the State Police position treated as the primary one. The regulation advises contacting the human resource office before pursuing it at all.

What the document does give a trooper is the shape of the thing: file before you start, one form per job, no police or security work, nothing in liquor or cannabis, no more than four hours before a shift — and thirty days of silence means yes.

Common questions

Can a Pennsylvania trooper work security or a second police job?

No. Members may not serve as magistrates, constables, deputy sheriffs, other law enforcement officers, or in a security guard capacity where investigative, arrest or prosecutive action could result.

Is there a weekly hour cap?

No cap at all — the test is interference with department duties. The one hard number is four hours maximum immediately before a 7.5 or 8 hour shift.

What happens if nobody answers the request?

After thirty days it is deemed granted, under the collective bargaining agreement. A suspended member gets an answer within fourteen days.