On Tuesday, Seattle Mayor Tim Burgess announced his plan to restructure the way Seattle Police Department (SPD) handles off-duty employment for its officers and Parking Enforcement Officers (PEOs). The announcement follows a September 27 Executive Order from Burgess requiring off-duty police work be regulated and managed by the City of Seattle, rather than private companies and the police union.
Seattle City Councilmember Lorena M. González is optimistic that the plan will help restore public trust.
“This issue of police off-duty employment was a problem that needed to be addressed with urgency, and I thank Mayor Burgess for his leadership in quickly coming up with a solution,” said González. “Seattle residents, business owners, and police officers all need to be able to trust that the lawful practice of off-duty police work is being managed with integrity and fairness. This plan will help us restore that trust.”
According to details of the plan, a new internal office at the Seattle Police Department will oversee the practice of off-duty employment. That office will be staffed by civilians and overseen by the Chief of Police or one of her assistant chiefs. Potential employers will be fully vetted before they will be allowed to connect with officers who are seeking off-duty employment, and assignments will be made by civilian staff only (not officers).
While full implementation of this plan will take some time, the Seattle Police Department will operate under an interim in-house management solution while drafting policy to implement the permanent program. The SPD’s policy to support a permanent program will be drafted by the end of January 2018. That step will be followed by the hiring, office set-up, and software purchasing necessary to implement the permanent program, which will launch by August 1, 2018.
According to Burgess, this new approach to regulating and managing off-duty work for SPD employees is designed to be fair for employers and employees and to provide full transparency and accountability.
“As promised, today we are taking action to bring much-needed transparency and accountability to the off-duty employment of Seattle police officers,” Burgess said. “Under this plan, the practice of police officers taking off-duty jobs will be managed in-house by senior department officials and civilian staff. In no circumstances will individual police officers be allowed to assign off-duty jobs to fellow officers. As I said in September, that old practice ends with this administration.”
