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Bonner County Sheriff's Office 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.
Bonner County Sheriff's Office starts at $54,080 a year — about $26.00 an hour on a 2,080-hour year, before overtime. That is $14,310 below the median of the 1,681 agencies on this list, and $11,294 below the median for county agencies.
Cost of livingPrices in rural Idaho run about 8% below the national average, so this goes about as far as $58,870 would somewhere at average prices — $4,790 more than the headline figure. Most of that is utilities, at 70 against a national average of 100, where goods are 97. Based on price levels for the non-metropolitan part of this state, because this agency is outside every 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 isBonner County Sheriff's Office reported 45 sworn officers and 58 civilian staff to the FBI for 2025.No rate is shown: this agency does not police a single population the FBI publishes a figure for. 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 Bonner County says about itself
We accomplish our mission by providing the highest quality law enforcement, investigations, support, and public safety educational services possible, within the resources provided to us.
What Bonner County does
Bonner County Sheriff's Office covers 1,920 square miles and more than 42,000 residents in Idaho's northern panhandle, from Sandpoint. Patrol is its largest division and usually the public's first contact with the office, investigating crimes, enforcing traffic law, serving warrants and court process and collecting prisoners from other jurisdictions. Its Marine Division patrols roughly 120,000 acres of water — Lake Pend Oreille, Priest Lake and stretches of the Pend Oreille and Clark Fork rivers — nearly triple any other Idaho county.
Bonner County’s rotation, in BlueShifts
Patrol Deputies work 12 hour shifts with three days off one week and 4 days off the next week. They work shifts, including days, nights, weekends, and holidays, and bid for shifts once a year.
The rotation template screen — enter the cycle and the start date, and you are done.
WorkingOff
Every month, already filled in — no typing, however far ahead you look.
September 2026
This cycle has its own page: how it works, and how to build it.
Bonner County publishes the days on and off but not which are days and which are nights. In BlueShifts you choose that yourself — every shift can be a day, a night or a 24-hour tour, and the calendar marks it with a sun, a moon or a clock.
Three days off one week and four the next means the pattern runs on a fortnight, so the weekend you get back moves. BlueShifts builds it once and fills in every month ahead.
BlueShifts. Plan Your Year. Own Your Time.
The shift calendar built for your rotation, off-duty work, and life on and off the clock.
Save your shift schedule once and BlueShifts fills the rest of the year in.
Where the figure comes from
Checked 8 August 2026. This figure was advertised on the state POST job board on that date; postings there rotate, so the listing itself may since have closed. Idaho Peace Officer Standards and Training official Law Enforcement Job Postings — Patrol Deputy — open the source document
Current 2026 official recruitment; entry starting rate $26.00/hour
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.
How this level compares
Where Bonner County 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 | $35,006 | $71,287 | $163,619 | 1046 |
| County | $36,492 | $65,374 | $132,263 | 416 |
| Special jurisdiction | $31,200 | $60,195 | $107,954 | 69 |
| State | $33,994 | $64,998 | $102,692 | 143 |
| 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 $2,200 more than the middle municipal agency and about $8,100 more than the middle county agency and about $13,300 more than the middle special jurisdiction agency and about $8,500 more than the middle state agency and about $45,300 more than the middle territory agency. Bonner County starts at $54,080, so $11,294 below the county middle.
How it ranks
Common questions
How much does a Bonner County Sheriff's Office officer make?
Bonner County Sheriff's Office starts a new officer on $54,080 a year, about $26.00 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 Idaho Peace Officer Standards and Training official Law Enforcement Job Postings — Patrol Deputy.
Is that good pay for a police officer in Idaho?
It ranks #26 of 51 agencies we have verified in Idaho — 25 pay less, 25 pay more in the state — and #1,462 of 1,681 nationally. Against the national median it is $14,310 below, and against other county agencies $11,294 below.
What shifts do Bonner County Sheriff's Office officers work?
Patrol Deputies work 12 hour shifts with three days off one week and 4 days off the next week. They work shifts, including days, nights, weekends, and holidays, and bid for shifts once a year. That is the agency's own published wording; the pattern is drawn on this page.
Compare with another department
Put Bonner County Sheriff's Office 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 ID
| # | Agency | Level | Sworn # | Entry pay | Vs Bonner | National |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sun Valley Police Department | Municipal | — | $75,005 | +$20,925 | #558 |
| 2 | Blaine County Sheriff's Office | County | 20 | $74,526 | +$20,446 | #577 |
| 3 | Boise Police Department | Municipal | 326 | $69,514 | +$15,434 | #791 |
| 4 | Meridian Police Department | Municipal | 109 | $67,621 | +$13,541 | #885 |
| 5 | Post Falls Police Department | Municipal | 52 | $67,330 | +$13,250 | #904 |
| 6 | Coeur d'Alene Police Department | Municipal | 94 | $66,872 | +$12,792 | #925 |
| 7 | Kootenai County Sheriff's Office | County | 104 | $65,291 | +$11,211 | #1,006 |
| 8 | Ada County Sheriff's Office | County | 220 | $64,896 | +$10,816 | #1,030 |
| 9 | McCall Police Department | Municipal | 12 | $63,773 | +$9,693 | #1,069 |
| 10 | Moscow Police Department | Municipal | 30 | $63,544 | +$9,464 | #1,079 |
| 11 | Lewiston Police Department | Municipal | 46 | $63,321 | +$9,241 | #1,094 |
| 12 | Idaho State Police | State | 311 | $62,546 | +$8,466 | #1,128 |
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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