The multimillion-dollar business of side jobs for police is still part law and order and part Wild West, but the city of Pittsburgh hopes to rein it in before the April 9 Pirates home opener.

Centralizing the system under which officers get after-hours assignments for private pay was supposed to be done last year but has taken longer than expected. Sports facilities, bars, banks and utility companies still use a mix of the bureau's system and police-run private security networks, said Police Chief Nate Harper yesterday.

"They're a hybrid of both [private and public systems] right now, and we're trying to get it under one umbrella," he said. "We're looking at revamping it, hopefully before the opening of baseball season."

That new timetable comes as lawyers for Cmdr. Catherine McNeilly put heat on the city to speed the process. She is the plaintiff in a federal lawsuit that hinges in part on alleged abuse of the system for assigning police side jobs. She also is the wife of former Chief Robert W. McNeilly Jr., who began the process of revamping the side-job business.

"We do think that the secondary employment system needs to be overhauled to promote accountability," said Witold Walczak, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union, which is helping to represent Cmdr. McNeilly. "It seems to be largely unregulated."

Prior to 2005, if a business wanted to rent off-duty city police, it would contact one of several officers who ran security networks. That person would line up officers for the job, in return for a cut of the pay.

Chief McNeilly pushed the purchase of $30,950 in software from North Carolina-based Cover Your Assets LLC as part of an estimated $150,000 in annual spending he said was needed to create a better system for meting out the side jobs and collecting payment.

The bureau would add $4 to $5 to each officer's hourly charge, which can reach $38. That fee would cover administrative spending, and the costs of lawsuits and workers' compensation claims stemming from side jobs.

Such a computer system would dole out jobs evenly, instead of on a who-you-know basis.

Last spring, after leaving his city job, Chief McNeilly met with Cover Your Assets to discuss possible collaboration. He and firm owners say no business relationship was consummated, nor is one planned.

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl nixed the additional fee in November, saying it could cause businesses to hire fewer officers. He said the bureau would continue centralizing the assignment of side jobs.

But police details in and around the stadiums, for instance, are still handled by Sgt. John H. Fisher Jr. and Lt. Thomas J. Atkins. Bar details are often under-the-table affairs.

By April, the bureau wants to "run all the details through the city," said Chief Harper. Assistant Chief Regina McDonald is meeting with companies that use off-duty police and trying to work out the terms, he said.

Cmdr. McNeilly's case stems from her efforts to discipline an officer for abusing the side job system and her allegations that former city Operations Director Dennis Regan improperly intervened -- a claim that hasn't been borne out by evidence.

She was demoted for disseminating personnel records related to the side job abuse, but temporarily reinstated by Chief U.S. District Judge Donetta Ambrose.

Tim O'Brien, one of Cmdr. McNeilly's attorneys, said he and the city are negotiating settlements related to both her case and another involving Sgt. Mark A. Eggleton, who is accused in a federal lawsuit of roughing up a patron in an Oakland eatery in 2004 while on a side job.

"It simply does not make sense to have a shadow police department paid by private employers that is not subject to the level of supervision and management that on-duty police officers are," Mr. O'Brien said.