Philadelphia Police and outside employment

The prohibition that changes everything

Almost every agency in this section regulates how officers work private security. Philadelphia does not regulate it — it prohibits it.

The directive bars any employment of a patrol, investigative, guard or security nature, or any job where an officer's badge, uniform or police powers are used in performing it.

So the arrangement most of this section describes — an officer in uniform, hired by a business, paid by that business — does not exist in Philadelphia as outside employment. Where the city needs policing at a private event, the department handles it as a request for services: the organisation is billed for the officers and equipment, and the officers are paid overtime by the department.

That single decision removes at a stroke the questions other agencies spend pages managing: who the officer works for, who pays, who is liable, and whether a customer can direct police action.

What outside employment can still be

Officers may hold outside jobs and run businesses. What they may not do is a long list.

Alcohol is out entirely — any establishment where alcoholic beverages or Schedule I controlled substances are sold, made or distributed. So is process serving, bill collecting, and any work where police powers might be used to settle a civil dispute for an employer.

Also prohibited: obtaining department information or records; working for an employer involved in a labor dispute; assisting the preparation of a civil suit or a criminal defense; anything towing, hauling or storing disabled, abandoned or recovered stolen vehicles; and businesses whose primary revenue comes from sexual products or services.

And any work for another government agency at any level is barred, with military reserve service the single exception.

Two catch-all tests sit underneath: nothing that reduces an officer's effectiveness or presents an unusual amount of physical danger, and nothing conflicting with the department's interests.

Thirty-two hours, and no borrowing your own leave

Outside employment may not exceed 32 hours a week. That is a cap on the outside work itself rather than a combined ceiling, and it is among the tightest here.

Nothing may be worked during regularly scheduled hours. And a provision added in 2019 closes the obvious workaround: using vacation, holiday or compensatory time during regularly scheduled work hours in order to do outside employment is prohibited.

Other agencies permit exactly that with supervisory approval. Philadelphia does not.

Outside employment is also barred entirely during an officer's probationary period, and while on a leave of absence, sick leave, limited duty, restricted duty or injured-on-duty status.

Six people have to approve it

The approval chain is the longest we have documented. A request goes up as a memorandum with a form required under a mayoral executive order, and passes through the commanding officer, an inspector, a chief inspector, the police safety officer, the deputy commissioner, and finally the police personnel officer, who records the decision.

The safety officer's role is distinctive: their job at that stage is specifically to judge whether the work would endanger the officer's health or affect their ability to perform police duties.

The commanding officer weighs whether the job is prohibited, whether it would degrade the department's professional or ethical standards, and whether the officer's work record or sick leave usage suggests it would hurt their performance.

Changes require the whole thing again. Any increase in hours or change of duties needs an updated submission fourteen days before the change takes effect, and ending an outside job means notifying within fourteen days after.

Hurt outside the job? No sick leave either

Most agencies here decline to provide workers' compensation for private work. Philadelphia goes further.

The directive cites a civil service regulation which prohibits an employee who is injured, disabled or becomes ill as a result of their outside employment from using sick leave or receiving injury benefits.

So the loss is not only the absence of cover for the injury. It is the inability to draw on leave the officer has already accrued while recovering from it.

Any such injury still has to be reported to the department under the sick leave directive. And while engaged in outside employment, officers are bound by their employer's conditions on carrying firearms, and remain subject to the department's own directive on off-duty police action.