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Carbondale 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.
Carbondale Police Department starts at $71,242 a year — about $34.25 an hour on a 2,080-hour year, before overtime. That is $2,852 above the median of the 1,681 agencies on this list, and $22 below the median for municipal agencies.
How big the department isCarbondale Police Department reported 59 sworn officers and 27 civilian staff to the FBI for 2025. That is 2.7 officers per 1,000 residents, over a population of 22,213.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 Carbondale says about itself
The mission of the Carbondale Police Department is to work in partnership with our community to preserve life, protect human rights, safeguard property, and improve the quality of life by providing police services to all in a fair, sensitive, and professional manner. The department is a full-service agency providing 24-hour service to the community.
What Carbondale does
Carbondale Police Department is a full-service agency providing 24-hour cover to a southern Illinois university city, responsible for enforcing state law and city ordinances, investigating all criminal incidents and traffic collisions, special traffic enforcement and special event planning, and for enforcing the city's animal ordinances. It also acts as an educational resource for local agencies and schools, coordinating community crime-prevention and educational programmes. The department runs a citizens police academy, victim advocacy services, a house watch scheme and a table talk programme, and operates a lateral entry route for serving full-time sworn officers alongside entry-level recruitment.
Where the figure comes from
Checked 13 August 2026. $34.12/hour / $71,242.56 annual base. Official City Police Officer recruitment remains open through December 31, 2026 and publishes the regular full-time Patrol Officer rate of $34. — open the source document
$34.12/hour / $71,242.56 annual base. Official City Police Officer recruitment remains open through December 31, 2026 and publishes the regular full-time Patrol Officer rate of $34.12/hour ($71,242 annualized).
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 Carbondale 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. Carbondale starts at $71,242, so $45 below the municipal middle.
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How it ranks
Common questions
How much does a Carbondale Police Department officer make?
Carbondale Police Department starts a new officer on $71,242 a year, about $34.25 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 $34.12/hour / $71,242.56 annual base. Official City Police Officer recruitment remains open through December 31, 2026 and publishes the regular full-time Patrol Officer rate of $34..
Is that good pay for a police officer in Illinois?
It ranks #26 of 35 agencies we have verified in Illinois — 9 pay less, 25 pay more in the state — and #711 of 1,681 nationally. Against the national median it is $2,852 above, and against other municipal agencies $22 below.
Compare with another department
Put Carbondale 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 IL
| # | Agency | Level | Sworn # | Entry pay | Vs Carbondale | National |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vernon Hills Police Department | Municipal | 44 | $94,460 | +$23,218 | #151 |
| 2 | Wilmette Police Department | Municipal | 45 | $93,156 | +$21,914 | #165 |
| 3 | Aurora Police Department | Municipal | 328 | $92,248 | +$21,006 | #176 |
| 4 | Des Plaines Police Department | Municipal | 97 | $91,440 | +$20,198 | #186 |
| 5 | Highland Park Police Department | Municipal | 60 | $91,158 | +$19,916 | #191 |
| 6 | Illinois State Police | State | 1,821 | $90,828 | +$19,586 | #199 |
| 7 | River Forest Police Department | Municipal | 26 | $90,106 | +$18,864 | #213 |
| 8 | Elgin Police Department | Municipal | 203 | $88,274 | +$17,032 | #245 |
| 9 | Lake County Sheriff's Office | County | 113 | $87,297 | +$16,055 | #259 |
| 10 | Woodridge Police Department | Municipal | 47 | $84,781 | +$13,539 | #294 |
| 11 | DeKalb Police Department | Municipal | 72 | $83,449 | +$12,207 | #326 |
| 12 | Rolling Meadows Police Department | Municipal | 49 | $81,439 | +$10,197 | #362 |
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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