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Dayton 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.
Dayton Police Department starts at $77,411 a year — about $37.22 an hour on a 2,080-hour year, before overtime. That is $10,726 above the median of the 2,288 agencies on this list, and $9,271 above the median for municipal agencies.
Cost of livingPrices in Ohio run about 7% below the national average, so this goes about as far as $83,441 would somewhere at average prices — $6,029 more than the headline figure. Most of that is rent, at 73 against a national average of 100, where goods are 94. 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 isDayton Police Department reported 342 sworn officers and 67 civilian staff to the FBI for 2025. That is 2.5 officers per 1,000 residents, over a population of 136,047.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 Dayton says about itself
The Dayton Police Department, through genuine community partnerships, utilizes comprehensive crime reduction strategies, supported by innovative technology, to provide effective and efficient service that enhances quality of life and safety for our community.
What Dayton does
The Dayton Police Department serves the city of Dayton, Ohio, in Montgomery County. Every officer begins at the Dayton Police Academy, which the Department describes as providing extensive and comprehensive training, and moves from the academy rate to the appointment step on completing the Ohio training curriculum. The Department publishes its own compensation table by year of service, from appointment through forty-eight months, alongside the sergeant and lieutenant ranges above it.
Where the figure comes from
Checked 21 September 2026. Dayton Police Department, Join Dayton PD — 2026 compensation table, Appointment column: "$37.22/hr, $1,488.80 weekly, $77,411.27 annually". — open the source document
$77,411.27 is the Department's own annual figure for the APPOINTMENT column of its 2026 compensation table and no arithmetic has been applied to it. THE ACADEMY RATE IS DELIBERATELY NOT THE FIGURE: the same page states "Selected recruits will attend the academy and receive a starting pay rate of $27.75 per hour, plus health, dental, and vision benefits during the training period", and $27.75 is a pre-academy recruit rate under the 19 September instruction. The appointment rate is what the sworn officer is paid from appointment, and the table's later columns are TIME steps above it - $79,749.84 at 12 months, $82,088.40 at 24, $84,522.42 at 36 and $87,314.38 at 48 - so this is the same reading applied to Lexington SC and Dublin OH, not the Berkeley County one. Excluded from the figure: the "Yearly bonus of up to 2% of base pay", the 1.5x overtime rate, the $.65 per hour night differential and the 8% FTO uplift, all of which the page lists separately from base. THE FIGURE CARRIES A YEAR, 2026, BUT NO EFFECTIVE DATE. NEXT DOCUMENT: the City of Dayton / FOP Lodge 44 collective bargaining agreement wage appendix, which would date the 2026 table and supply earlier years.
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 Dayton 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. Dayton starts at $77,411, so $9,271 above the municipal middle.
How it ranks
Common questions
How much does a Dayton Police Department officer make?
Dayton Police Department starts a new officer on $77,411 a year, about $37.22 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 Dayton Police Department, Join Dayton PD — 2026 compensation table, Appointment column: "$37.22/hr, $1,488.80 weekly, $77,411.27 annually"..
Is that good pay for a police officer in Ohio?
It ranks #11 of 53 agencies we have verified in Ohio — 42 pay less, 10 pay more in the state — and #575 of 2,288 nationally. Against the national median it is $10,726 above, and against other municipal agencies $9,271 above.
Compare with another department
Put Dayton 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 OH
| # | Agency | Level | Sworn # | Entry pay | Vs Dayton | National |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Westlake Police Department | Municipal | — | $88,712 | +$11,301 | #291 |
| 2 | University Heights Police Department | Municipal | 29 | $82,259 | +$4,848 | #421 |
| 3 | Powell Police Department | Municipal | 21 | $81,426 | +$4,015 | #444 |
| 4 | Springfield Police Department | Municipal | 123 | $80,764 | +$3,352 | #468 |
| 5 | Stow Police Department | Municipal | 45 | $80,288 | +$2,877 | #486 |
| 6 | Cincinnati Police Department | Municipal | 971 | $79,359 | +$1,948 | #513 |
| 7 | Hilliard Police Department | Municipal | 63 | $79,248 | +$1,837 | #515 |
| 8 | Kettering Police Department | Municipal | 79 | $79,227 | +$1,816 | #517 |
| 9 | Canfield Police Department | Municipal | 21 | $79,002 | +$1,591 | #522 |
| 10 | Mentor Police Department | Municipal | — | $77,849 | +$437 | #563 |
| 12 | West Chester Township Police Department | Municipal | 92 | $77,027 | −$384 | #584 |
| 13 | Beavercreek Police Department | Municipal | 53 | $76,918 | −$493 | #588 |
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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