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Covington 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.
Covington Police Department starts at $60,551 a year — about $29.11 an hour on a 2,080-hour year, before overtime. That is $6,134 below the median of the 2,288 agencies on this list, and $7,589 below the median for municipal agencies.
Cost of livingPrices in Georgia run about 4% below the national average, so this goes about as far as $62,882 would somewhere at average prices — $2,331 more than the headline figure. Most of that is rent, at 89 against a national average of 100, where goods are 99. 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 isCovington Police Department reported 55 sworn officers and 11 civilian staff to the FBI for 2025. That is 3.5 officers per 1,000 residents, over a population of 15,581.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 Covington says about itself
A strong police force is built on character.
What Covington does
The Covington Police Department serves the city of Covington, the seat of Newton County, Georgia, about 35 miles east of Atlanta, from 13183 Harland Drive NE. It runs a Support Services and Community Outreach Division alongside patrol, and puts a good deal of weight on community programmes - a Citizen Academy, an Explorers Program for young people, and S.C.A.N., the Safer Covington Action Network. Patrol officers work twelve-hour shifts with every other weekend off and are assigned a take-home vehicle within a 35-mile range after completing field training. The City pays the POAB benefit, contributes four to six per cent of base pay to a 401A and matches two to five per cent of a 457(b) depending on tenure and classification.
Where the figure comes from
Checked 20 September 2026. Covington Police Department Careers page, pay table: "Patrol Officer I $60,550.88 - $88,925.72" — open the source document
$60,550.88 is the bottom of the published Patrol Officer I band and no arithmetic has been applied to it. The Department prices three patrol classifications in one table - Patrol Officer I $60,550.88-$88,925.72, Patrol Officer II $63,614.20-$93,420.08, Patrol Officer III $66,834.04-$98,138.04 - and Patrol Officer I is the entry classification. Trainee class: NOT PRICED - the Department names no cadet, recruit or academy wage anywhere on the page, so the bottom of the entry classification is what a candidate is hired at. $88,925.72 is the top of the band and is a ceiling, not a step. Excluded from the figure: the city-paid POAB benefit, 401A contributions of four to six per cent of base pay, 457(b) matching of two to five per cent, the take-home vehicle assigned after field training, overtime and extra-duty assignments. THE FIGURE CARRIES NO EFFECTIVE DATE, which is the weakness here. OPEN: the page does not say whether applicants must already hold Georgia POST certification or whether the City sends new hires to the academy, so the non-lateral entry test is satisfied only by the absence of any separately priced lateral or recruit rate, not by a positive statement. NAME TRAP: this is Covington, Newton County, GEORGIA, at 13183 Harland Drive NE - NOT Covington, Kentucky, a separate and larger agency at 108 sworn which is not on the roster, and not Covington, Virginia, Louisiana or Tennessee. The domain covingtonpolice.com belongs to the Georgia agency.
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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How this level compares
Where Covington 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. Covington starts at $60,551, so $7,589 below the municipal middle.
How it ranks
Common questions
How much does a Covington Police Department officer make?
Covington Police Department starts a new officer on $60,551 a year, about $29.11 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 Covington Police Department Careers page, pay table: "Patrol Officer I $60,550.88 - $88,925.72".
Is that good pay for a police officer in Georgia?
It ranks #17 of 80 agencies we have verified in Georgia — 63 pay less, 16 pay more in the state — and #1,530 of 2,288 nationally. Against the national median it is $6,134 below, and against other municipal agencies $7,589 below.
Compare with another department
Put Covington 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 GA
| # | Agency | Level | Sworn # | Entry pay | Vs Covington | National |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chamblee Police Department | Municipal | 68 | $73,733 | +$13,182 | #729 |
| 2 | Sandy Springs Police Department | Municipal | 149 | $71,686 | +$11,136 | #836 |
| 3 | Georgia Bureau of Investigation | State | 338 | $64,977 | +$4,426 | #1,265 |
| 4 | Duluth Police Department | Municipal | 57 | $64,755 | +$4,204 | #1,279 |
| 5 | Garden City Police Department | Municipal | 35 | $64,072 | +$3,521 | #1,314 |
| 6 | Georgia State Patrol | State | — | $63,684 | +$3,133 | #1,336 |
| 7 | South Fulton Police Department | Municipal | 213 | $63,440 | +$2,889 | #1,354 |
| 8 | Hall County Sheriff's Office | County | 283 | $63,365 | +$2,814 | #1,359 |
| 9 | Roswell Police Department | Municipal | 154 | $62,462 | +$1,912 | #1,413 |
| 10 | Dunwoody Police Department | Municipal | 66 | $62,301 | +$1,750 | #1,428 |
| 11 | Savannah Police Department | Municipal | 425 | $61,989 | +$1,438 | #1,450 |
| 12 | Alpharetta Police Department | Municipal | 105 | $61,100 | +$549 | #1,495 |
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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