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Butte 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.
Butte County Sheriff's Office starts at $85,509 a year — about $41.11 an hour on a 2,080-hour year, before overtime. That is $18,824 above the median of the 2,288 agencies on this list, and $21,949 above the median for county agencies.
Cost of livingPrices in California run about 11% above the national average, so this is worth roughly $77,230 somewhere at average prices — $8,279 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 isButte County Sheriff's Office reported 91 sworn officers and 171 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 Butte County says about itself
The mission of the Butte County Sheriff's Office is to protect and serve the citizens of Butte County by providing vigorous, ethical, efficient law enforcement and to increase public awareness of personal safety and security measures.
What Butte County does
The Butte County Sheriff's Office polices the unincorporated county from Oroville in the northern Sacramento Valley and runs the county jail and the coroner's office. Its deputies are represented by the Deputy Sheriff's Association, whose General Unit is priced in the County's own salary ordinance on a seven-step ladder for class 12011 Deputy Sheriff, with a separately priced Deputy Sheriff Trainee class beneath it at a single flat hourly rate and a Reserve Deputy Sheriff Level II class at the state minimum wage. The ordinance carries agreed cost-of-living tables dated a year and two years ahead of the rate now in force.
Where the figure comes from
Checked 21 September 2026. County of Butte Salary Ordinance and Position Allocation, Ordinance #4273 and subsequent amendments through 8 September 2026, Section 28G "Deputy Sheriff's Association - General Unit" — "12011 Deputy Sheriff 90 $41.11 ... $3,288.80" at Step 1 on the table headed "(Effective the pay period including July 1, 2026 - COLA 5%)". — open the source document
$85,508.80 is the bi-weekly rate the ordinance prints, $3,288.80, at twenty-six pay periods; the same row prints $41.11 an hour, which at 2,080 hours gives the identical figure, so the two forms agree to the cent and the annualisation is not doing any work. THE CURRENT TABLE IS THE JULY 2026 ONE, NOT THE FIRST IN THE SECTION: Section 28G carries six dated tables for class 12011 and on 21 September 2026 the one in force is "(Effective the pay period including July 1, 2026 - COLA 5%)". THE TRAINEE IS A SEPARATE CLASS AND IS NOT THE FIGURE: Section 28O prices "12012 Deputy Sheriff Trainee (Effective July 5, 2025) $32.60/HR" as a single flat rate, having been "$31.23/HR" from 6 July 2024, and the same section prices "6818 Reserve Deputy Sheriff Level II" at "California State Minimum Wage - $25.00/HR". Class 12011 Deputy Sheriff is the sworn class and its Step 1 is the day-one rate for a deputy out of the academy; the Sheriff's Office states the promotion in terms - "Upon graduation from the academy, they are 'promoted' to Deputy Sheriff". Excluded from the figure: the six steps above, topping out at $55.09 an hour, and the recruiting site's "Earn up to $155,000.00 a year", which is a ceiling inclusive of incentives and longevity and is not a rate. A TRAP WORTH NAMING: a plain fetch of this same PDF returns the string "Deputy Sheriff or Deputy Sheriff Trainee ... Range 75" at about $40.20 an hour. That is the POSITION ALLOCATION line on page 15, not a salary row, and Range 75 belongs to another bargaining unit's table. The salary rows are in Section 28G on page 56.
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 through 2028
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 Butte 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 | $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. Butte County starts at $85,509, so $21,944 above the county middle.
How it ranks
Common questions
How much does a Butte County Sheriff's Office officer make?
Butte County Sheriff's Office starts a new officer on $85,509 a year, about $41.11 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 County of Butte Salary Ordinance and Position Allocation, Ordinance #4273 and subsequent amendments through 8 September 2026, Section 28G "Deputy Sheriff's Association - General Unit" — "12011 Deputy Sheriff 90 $41.11 ... $3,288.80" at Step 1 on the table headed "(Effective the pay period including July 1, 2026 - COLA 5%)"..
Is that good pay for a police officer in California?
It ranks #206 of 278 agencies we have verified in California — 72 pay less, 205 pay more in the state — and #344 of 2,288 nationally. Against the national median it is $18,824 above, and against other county agencies $21,949 above.
Compare with another department
Put Butte 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 CA
| # | Agency | Level | Sworn # | Entry pay | Vs Butte | National |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Santa Clara Police Department | Municipal | 141 | $163,619 | +$78,110 | #1 |
| 2 | Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety | Municipal | 227 | $149,443 | +$63,934 | #2 |
| 3 | Redwood City Police Department | Municipal | 83 | $147,942 | +$62,433 | #3 |
| 4 | San Jose Police Department | Municipal | 1,065 | $144,003 | +$58,495 | #4 |
| 5 | Mountain View Police Department | Municipal | 90 | $143,096 | +$57,587 | #5 |
| 6 | San Mateo Police Department | Municipal | 111 | $141,024 | +$55,515 | #6 |
| 7 | Los Altos Police Department | Municipal | 31 | $139,740 | +$54,231 | #7 |
| 8 | Hayward Police Department | Municipal | 171 | $138,965 | +$53,456 | #8 |
| 9 | Milpitas Police Department | Municipal | 84 | $138,261 | +$52,752 | #9 |
| 10 | Los Gatos Police Department | Municipal | 34 | $132,394 | +$46,885 | #10 |
| 11 | Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office | County | 1,071 | $132,263 | +$46,754 | #11 |
| 12 | Menlo Park Police Department | Municipal | 43 | $132,036 | +$46,527 | #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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