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Arcadia Police Department entry pay
What this agency pays a new officer to start, and how that compares with the rest of the country.
Entry pay onlyEvery salary here is what an officer is paid on day one, out of the academy — base pay on a 40-hour week, with no overtime, shift differential, specialty or education pay counted. Nobody stays on it.
Arcadia Police Department starts at $103,284 a year — about $49.66 an hour on a 2,080-hour year, before overtime. That is $36,599 above the median of the 2,288 agencies on this list, and $35,144 above the median for municipal agencies.
Cost of livingPrices in California run about 11% above the national average, so this is worth roughly $93,284 somewhere at average prices — $10,000 less than the headline figure. Most of that is utilities, at 159 against a national average of 100, where goods are 106. Based on state-wide price levels, because this agency is not tied to a single metro area, from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, 2024. The salary above is what the employer publishes; this line is our arithmetic on it, and nothing on this site is ranked on it.
How big the department isArcadia Police Department reported 65 sworn officers and 27 civilian staff to the FBI for 2025. That is 1.2 officers per 1,000 residents, over a population of 53,974.A rate is only meaningful for a city department, where the population served is the city’s own. Reporting to the FBI is voluntary, so a count can reflect a partial return as easily as a small agency, and the FBI asks that agencies not be compared on staffing. Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, Full-time Law Enforcement Employees, 2025.
What Arcadia says about itself
The motto of the Department is 'Making A Difference' and those who work for the agency do so everyday by protecting quality of life and providing the highest level of service to the community.
What Arcadia does
The Arcadia Police Department serves the city of Arcadia, California, in the San Gabriel Valley of Los Angeles County. Its sworn officers are represented by the Arcadia Police Officers Association, and the City publishes their salary schedule as a single exhibit carrying three fiscal years of dated ranges side by side, with Police Officer as the lowest sworn class and no recruit or trainee tier beneath it. The Department runs its dispatch center twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
Where the figure comes from
Checked 21 September 2026. City of Arcadia, APOA Salary Schedule FY 24-25 to FY 26-27, Exhibit A — Police Officer, range 680, Step A: $8,607 monthly effective 1 July 2026. — open the source document
$8,607 a month is the City's own Step A figure for range 680 and $103,284.00 is that rate times twelve, which is exact rather than an estimate. THE CURRENT COLUMN IS THE 2026 ONE: the schedule is a single exhibit carrying three dated columns side by side, 1 July 2024, 1 July 2025 and 1 July 2026, and on 21 September 2026 the rate in force is the last of them. ARCADIA PRICES NO CADET CLASS: no Police Recruit and no Police Officer Trainee row appears anywhere on the APOA schedule, and Police Officer at range 680 is the lowest sworn classification listed, so there is no training rate to reject. Excluded from the figure: every incentive, allowance and differential the City prices apart from the range. THE FIGURE IS DATED BY THE SCHEDULE ITSELF.
Entry-level base salary only. Overtime, bonuses, education incentives, shift
differentials, locality pay and lateral rates are excluded, so most officers earn more
than this.
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Entry pay, 2024–2026
Every point is the entry-class annual base printed in the agency’s own pay document. Base pay only — no shift differential, incentives or allowances.
How this level compares
Where Arcadia sits is partly about the agency and partly about which level of policing it belongs to. The three levels do not pay the same.
| Level | Lowest | Median | Highest | Agencies |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Municipal | $33,280 | $68,140 | $163,619 | 1549 |
| County | $35,000 | $63,565 | $132,263 | 516 |
| Special jurisdiction | $31,200 | $60,204 | $107,954 | 71 |
| State | $33,994 | $65,166 | $110,916 | 145 |
| Federal | $70,477 | $73,502 | $86,530 | 5 |
| Territory | $16,640 | $28,236 | $43,354 | 9 |
Federal agencies pay the most to start
The middle federal agency starts at $73,502 — about $5,400 more than the middle municipal agency and about $9,900 more than the middle county agency and about $13,300 more than the middle special jurisdiction agency and about $8,300 more than the middle state agency and about $45,300 more than the middle territory agency. Arcadia starts at $103,284, so $35,144 above the municipal middle.
How it ranks
Common questions
How much does a Arcadia Police Department officer make?
Arcadia Police Department starts a new officer on $103,284 a year, about $49.66 an hour on a 2,080-hour year. That is base salary before overtime, bonuses, education incentives, shift differentials and locality pay, so most serving officers earn more. The figure comes from City of Arcadia, APOA Salary Schedule FY 24-25 to FY 26-27, Exhibit A — Police Officer, range 680, Step A: $8,607 monthly effective 1 July 2026..
Is that good pay for a police officer in California?
It ranks #90 of 278 agencies we have verified in California — 188 pay less, 89 pay more in the state — and #96 of 2,288 nationally. Against the national median it is $36,599 above, and against other municipal agencies $35,144 above.
Compare with another department
Put Arcadia Police Department side by side with any other agency on the site — the two salaries, what each is worth once local prices are counted, and which comes out ahead.
The agencies either side of it
Other agencies in CA
| # | Agency | Level | Sworn # | Entry pay | Vs Arcadia | National |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Santa Clara Police Department | Municipal | 141 | $163,619 | +$60,335 | #1 |
| 2 | Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety | Municipal | 227 | $149,443 | +$46,159 | #2 |
| 3 | Redwood City Police Department | Municipal | 83 | $147,942 | +$44,658 | #3 |
| 4 | San Jose Police Department | Municipal | 1,065 | $144,003 | +$40,719 | #4 |
| 5 | Mountain View Police Department | Municipal | 90 | $143,096 | +$39,812 | #5 |
| 6 | San Mateo Police Department | Municipal | 111 | $141,024 | +$37,740 | #6 |
| 7 | Los Altos Police Department | Municipal | 31 | $139,740 | +$36,456 | #7 |
| 8 | Hayward Police Department | Municipal | 171 | $138,965 | +$35,681 | #8 |
| 9 | Milpitas Police Department | Municipal | 84 | $138,261 | +$34,977 | #9 |
| 10 | Los Gatos Police Department | Municipal | 34 | $132,394 | +$29,110 | #10 |
| 11 | Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office | County | 1,071 | $132,263 | +$28,979 | #11 |
| 12 | Menlo Park Police Department | Municipal | 43 | $132,036 | +$28,752 | #12 |
Base pay is only part of the year
Whatever the figure above, the rotation is what decides your year — which weekends you lose, when the changeovers land, what you can plan around. Save yours once and BlueShifts shows it a year ahead, with the off-duty jobs you take and what each one paid.
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