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Columbia 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.

Columbia Police Department starts at $48,825 a year — about $23.47 an hour on a 2,080-hour year, before overtime. That is $17,860 below the median of the 2,288 agencies on this list, and $19,315 below the median for municipal agencies.

Cost of livingPrices in South Carolina run about 6% below the national average, so this goes about as far as $52,081 would somewhere at average prices — $3,256 more than the headline figure. Most of that is rent, at 80 against a national average of 100, where goods are 96. 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 isColumbia Police Department reported 268 sworn officers and 120 civilian staff to the FBI for 2025. That is 1.8 officers per 1,000 residents, over a population of 147,021.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.