Home › Police pay › Florida › Bradenton Police Department
Bradenton 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.
Bradenton Police Department starts at $61,354 a year — about $29.50 an hour on a 2,080-hour year, before overtime. That is $5,331 below the median of the 2,288 agencies on this list, and $6,786 below the median for municipal agencies.
Cost of livingPrices in North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota, FL run about 2% above the national average, so this is worth roughly $59,906 somewhere at average prices — $1,448 less than the headline figure. That average hides a wide spread: rent at 128, where goods are 96. Based on price levels for this metropolitan 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 isBradenton Police Department reported 123 sworn officers and 46 civilian staff to the FBI for 2025. That is 2.1 officers per 1,000 residents, over a population of 58,792.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 Bradenton says about itself
The Bradenton Police Department is dedicated to excellence in policing through professionalism, courage, and transparency.
What Bradenton does
The Bradenton Police Department provides police services for the City of Bradenton, performing broad law-enforcement work protecting life and property and apprehending offenders.
Shifts at Bradenton
Bradenton states twelve-hour shifts on the same posting as the rate, with night-shift differential, bilingual pay and an education incentive.
The agency publishes the shift length but not a named cycle. These are the 12-hour rotations departments most often build on it: Pitman, 4 on, 4 off, DuPont, Panama, 3-4-4-3.
A night differential only pays on the nights you actually work, which is a count worth keeping. BlueShifts marks nights separately from days on the cycle, so the hours behind the differential are already there.
Where the figure comes from
Checked 30 August 2026. Police Officer - Must Be State Certified, Bradenton Police Department (job classification POLOFF, salary range minimum/maximum stated) — open the source document
2026 open posting; Police Officer compensation $62,121.19 a year. The non-sworn sponsored Police Recruit position is separate at $21.00/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 Bradenton 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. Bradenton starts at $61,354, so $6,786 below the municipal middle.
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.
How it ranks
Common questions
How much does a Bradenton Police Department officer make?
Bradenton Police Department starts a new officer on $61,354 a year, about $29.50 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 Police Officer - Must Be State Certified, Bradenton Police Department (job classification POLOFF, salary range minimum/maximum stated).
Is that good pay for a police officer in Florida?
It ranks #142 of 303 agencies we have verified in Florida — 161 pay less, 141 pay more in the state — and #1,483 of 2,288 nationally. Against the national median it is $5,331 below, and against other municipal agencies $6,786 below.
What shifts do Bradenton Police Department officers work?
Bradenton states twelve-hour shifts on the same posting as the rate, with night-shift differential, bilingual pay and an education incentive. That is the agency's own published wording; the pattern is drawn on this page.
Compare with another department
Put Bradenton 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 FL
| # | Agency | Level | Sworn # | Entry pay | Vs Bradenton | National |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Boca Raton Police Services Department | Municipal | 195 | $91,007 | +$29,653 | #244 |
| 2 | Fort Lauderdale Police Department | Municipal | 565 | $81,723 | +$20,369 | #433 |
| 3 | Plantation Police Department | Municipal | 164 | $81,000 | +$19,646 | #459 |
| 4 | Hillsboro Beach Police Department | Municipal | 15 | $80,954 | +$19,600 | #461 |
| 5 | Pinecrest Police Department | Municipal | 47 | $80,912 | +$19,558 | #464 |
| 6 | Sunny Isles Beach Police Department | Municipal | 65 | $80,000 | +$18,646 | #496 |
| 7 | Indian Creek Village Public Safety Department | Municipal | 10 | $79,850 | +$18,496 | #500 |
| 8 | Sunrise Police Department | Municipal | 190 | $79,071 | +$17,717 | #520 |
| 9 | Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office | County | 1,720 | $78,828 | +$17,474 | #526 |
| 10 | Aventura Police Department | Municipal | 91 | $78,556 | +$17,202 | #536 |
| 11 | Longboat Key Police Department | Municipal | 19 | $78,430 | +$17,076 | #543 |
| 12 | Manalapan Police Department | Municipal | 13 | $78,280 | +$16,926 | #549 |
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.
Scan to install
