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Clearwater 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.
Clearwater Police Department starts at $75,120 a year — about $36.12 an hour on a 2,080-hour year, before overtime. That is $8,435 above the median of the 2,288 agencies on this list, and $6,980 above the median for municipal agencies.
How big the department isClearwater Police Department reported 237 sworn officers and 103 civilian staff to the FBI for 2025. That is 2.0 officers per 1,000 residents, over a population of 116,679.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 Clearwater says about itself
The mission of the Clearwater Police Department is to consistently provide effective, professional and dependable law enforcement services to every citizen, visitor and business within the city of Clearwater. Clearwater officers embrace a "preservation-of-all-life" philosophy and practice a community policing approach that is customer-service centric.
What Clearwater does
Clearwater Police Department identifies Step 1 as its starting sworn-officer level, and its recruiting materials emphasise service, purpose and professional police work.
Where the figure comes from
Checked 10 August 2026. Clearwater Police Department official Salary, Step Scale and Benefits page — open the source document
2025 step scale; Step 1 starting officer $75,120. Academy pay $60,000 while attending. Steps 2 and 3 require 2-4 and 4-6 years prior experience.
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 Clearwater 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. Clearwater starts at $75,120, so $6,980 above the municipal middle.
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How it ranks
Common questions
How much does a Clearwater Police Department officer make?
Clearwater Police Department starts a new officer on $75,120 a year, about $36.12 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 Clearwater Police Department official Salary, Step Scale and Benefits page.
Is that good pay for a police officer in Florida?
It ranks #27 of 303 agencies we have verified in Florida — 276 pay less, 26 pay more in the state — and #671 of 2,288 nationally. Against the national median it is $8,435 above, and against other municipal agencies $6,980 above.
Compare with another department
Put Clearwater 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 Clearwater | National |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Boca Raton Police Services Department | Municipal | 195 | $91,007 | +$15,887 | #244 |
| 2 | Fort Lauderdale Police Department | Municipal | 565 | $81,723 | +$6,603 | #433 |
| 3 | Plantation Police Department | Municipal | 164 | $81,000 | +$5,880 | #459 |
| 4 | Hillsboro Beach Police Department | Municipal | 15 | $80,954 | +$5,834 | #461 |
| 5 | Pinecrest Police Department | Municipal | 47 | $80,912 | +$5,792 | #464 |
| 6 | Sunny Isles Beach Police Department | Municipal | 65 | $80,000 | +$4,880 | #496 |
| 7 | Indian Creek Village Public Safety Department | Municipal | 10 | $79,850 | +$4,730 | #500 |
| 8 | Sunrise Police Department | Municipal | 190 | $79,071 | +$3,951 | #520 |
| 9 | Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office | County | 1,720 | $78,828 | +$3,708 | #526 |
| 10 | Aventura Police Department | Municipal | 91 | $78,556 | +$3,436 | #536 |
| 11 | Longboat Key Police Department | Municipal | 19 | $78,430 | +$3,310 | #543 |
| 12 | Manalapan Police Department | Municipal | 13 | $78,280 | +$3,160 | #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.
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