Pittsburgh Councilman William Peduto yesterday called on Mayor Luke Ravenstahl to charge an extra fee to businesses that use off-duty city police, in light of the $200,000 settlement of a lawsuit involving an officer working such a side job.

He asked Mr. Ravenstahl to "put back into place a system that both Mayor [Tom] Murphy and [Mayor Bob] O'Connor supported," under which the city would assign all security side jobs and get $4 an hour for each, on top of the officer's fee.

The mayor said he is developing a system that will include an as-yet-undetermined fee for the city, but hasn't decided whether all side jobs will be doled out by the Police Bureau, rather than by entrepreneurs.

On Tuesday Mr. Ravenstahl's administration asked City Council to approve the settlement of a federal lawsuit related to a 2004 incident at the Original Hot Dog Shop in Oakland. Sgt. Mark A. Eggleton, working off-duty for the shop, allegedly roughed up customer Deven W. Werling of Largo, Fla.

Sgt. Eggleton was fired, but later reinstated to the force.

The city should charge fees above what the officer is paid to cover such settlements, officer injuries, and the costs of wear and tear on equipment related to side jobs, Mr. Peduto said. Mr. Peduto is challenging Mr. Ravenstahl for the Democratic nomination for mayor in May.

"There will be some fee," Mr. Ravenstahl said, adding that he "isn't going to make it so cost-prohibitive that businesses aren't going to hire officers."

He said the city would have to hire another 91 officers and spend $6.5 million to replicate the amount of coverage provided by officers working side jobs for private companies.

Mr. Murphy, in April 2005, made businesses seeking city event or construction permits hire officers through the Police Bureau and pay a fee. Then-Chief Robert W. McNeilly Jr. estimated the city could take in $500,000 a year by extending the system to all police side jobs, and bought scheduling software for such a system.

The program was to take effect in November.

But business representatives wrote to Mr. Ravenstahl in protest. One of them, Paul Wolak, security director for Station Square, said his spending on off-duty officers would rise by $13,000 a year under such a plan, forcing him to scale back his use of officers and tie up on-duty police when incidents occurred.

Mr. Ravenstahl shelved the fee after a Nov. 21 meeting with Fraternal Order of Police leadership. Now some side jobs are scheduled by the bureau and others by entrepreneurs.

"The only people benefitting from Mr. Ravenstahl's decision are entrepreneurial officers who collect part of the take," Mr. Peduto said yesterday.

The mayor said the administration is "still in the process of discussing" whether all such work should be doled out by the bureau. He said a decision should be made by April 9, when the Pirates' home season begins.