City council committee study to look at fees for MPD officers’ off-duty work

MINNEAPOLIS — A Minneapolis City Council committee on Monday approved a study that would examine how city resources are expended when police officers work off-duty for private businesses, and implement a fee on businesses for that work to recoup some of the costs. 
Council member Robin Wonsley argued that Minneapolis residents pay for vehicle use, gas and uniform upkeep when an officer works overtime for a private company, and deserve to be reimbursed for that.
“City public works workers can’t take city trucks and go fill potholes after hours and get paid in cash for doing that, but that’s exactly what we’re doing with MPD,” she said during a meeting Monday.
A 2019 off-duty work audit found 71% of officers had worked one or more off-duty shifts, and 8% said they worked more than 64 hours in a single week at least five times in a year.
“MPD officers [are] the only city employees that are able to extend the safety services that we pay as taxpayers for to be able to extend that into essentially a side hustle where they get to charge arbitrary amounts,” Wonsley added in an interview with WCCO Tuesday.
Minneapolis police officers have a right to off-duty work, enforceable by a 1997 court order, and the department largely can’t restrict that work.
But some on the City Council like Wonsley think there should be guardrails to “rein in” an unregulated system.
The Minneapolis Police Department’s overtime policy was scrutinized in the 2023 report by the U.S. Department of Justice, which argued that the system “undermines supervision”: Patrol officers are able to control whether supervisors get off-duty employment opportunities, which disincentivizes them from holding officers accountable. 
While private security pays significantly more than department overtime — at rates between $150 and $175 an hour  — the city “gets nothing” while MPD allows officers to use its squad cars and gas, the report states. 
Wonsley noted that the off-duty fee of $19 an hour for the use of a squad car would align with the city’s vehicle operation expense rate, and is one of the costs the city could recoup by implementing such fees. 
Other cities in Minnesota and across the nation have fees associated with off-duty work, according to a report presented to the City Council this summer. That includes St. Paul, which docks $20 from officers’ paychecks if they use their squads for off-duty work. 
During the Monday meeting, Council member Linea Palmisano said she didn’t really “mind the concept behind these items,” though argued it was simply “nibbling around the edges.” 
She also believes the city does not have jurisdiction to levy such fees, according to the terms of that 1997 agreement, and may have to go back to court.
“Right now the only changes that can be made are outlined in that settlement agreement and this isn’t one of them,” Palmisano said. 
More details about the ordinance — which the council’s committee instructed city staff to draft — are expected by early November. A study of the fees will be due by May.
Both proposals need final approval from the full City Council next week.
WCCO reached out to the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis for comment but did not hear back.