Home › Police pay › Georgia › DeKalb County Police Department
DeKalb County 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.
DeKalb County Police Department starts at $61,000 a year — about $29.33 an hour on a 2,080-hour year, before overtime. That is $5,685 below the median of the 2,288 agencies on this list, and $2,560 below the median for county agencies.
Cost of livingPrices in Georgia run about 4% below the national average, so this goes about as far as $63,348 would somewhere at average prices — $2,348 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 isDeKalb County Police Department reported 525 sworn officers and 276 civilian staff to the FBI for 2025.No rate is shown: this agency does not police a single population the FBI publishes a figure for. 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 DeKalb County says about itself
The DeKalb County Police Department is committed to protecting and serving a diverse and growing community of more than 700,000 residents across 271 square miles.
What DeKalb County does
The DeKalb County Police Department is the county police force for DeKalb County, Georgia, on the eastern side of metropolitan Atlanta, working from 1960 West Exchange Place in Tucker under Chief Gregory A. Padrick. The County describes it as serving a diverse and growing community of more than 700,000 residents across 271 square miles, around the clock. It is organised under four Assistant Chiefs commanding the Support Services Division, the Criminal Investigation Division, the Uniform Division and the Special Operations Division. The FBI's law enforcement employment tables put it at 306 sworn officers. Officers work a four-days-on, three-days-off schedule, and new recruits receive a $3,000 hiring bonus.
Where the figure comes from
Checked 20 September 2026. DeKalb County Police Department, Career Opportunities — starting salaries effective 1 March 2025: "High School/GED: $61,000" — open the source document
$61,000 is the County's own annual figure and no arithmetic has been applied to it. The County publishes four starting salaries in one block, all effective 1 March 2025: High School/GED $61,000, Bachelor's Degree $64,050, Certified Officers with two or more years $70,000, and Certified with a Bachelor's $73,500. THE NON-LATERAL TEST IS SETTLED BY THE BLOCK ITSELF: the two higher figures are expressly for CERTIFIED officers with two or more years of experience, which is prior sworn service and is what disqualifies; the $61,000 tier carries no experience condition at all. Trainee class: NOT PRICED - the County names no separate rate paid while at the academy, so the starting salary runs through academy training. The $64,050 tier is a degree premium on the same entry, not a later step, and is excluded along with the $3,000 new-recruit hiring bonus. SHIFT PATTERN PUBLISHED but not fully: the benefits list says '4 days on, 3 days off schedule' and does not give the tour length, so nothing has been built from it. NAME TRAP: DeKalb County GA also contains the City of Decatur and several municipal departments, and there is a separate DeKalb County in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Tennessee and Alabama - this is the Georgia county agency at 1960 West Exchange Place, Tucker. KIND: recorded as Sheriff, the roster's county-wide kind. DeKalb County runs a county POLICE department separate from the DeKalb County Sheriff's Office, which is a distinct agency with its own ORI; the roster has no county-police kind of its own.
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.
BlueShifts. Plan Your Year. Own Your Time.
The shift calendar built for your rotation, off-duty work, and life on and off the clock.
Save your shift schedule once and BlueShifts fills the rest of the year in.
How this level compares
Where DeKalb County 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. DeKalb County starts at $61,000, so $2,565 below the county middle.
How it ranks
Common questions
How much does a DeKalb County Police Department officer make?
DeKalb County Police Department starts a new officer on $61,000 a year, about $29.33 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 DeKalb County Police Department, Career Opportunities — starting salaries effective 1 March 2025: "High School/GED: $61,000".
Is that good pay for a police officer in Georgia?
It ranks #13 of 80 agencies we have verified in Georgia — 67 pay less, 12 pay more in the state — and #1,504 of 2,288 nationally. Against the national median it is $5,685 below, and against other county agencies $2,560 below.
Compare with another department
Put DeKalb County 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 DeKalb | National |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chamblee Police Department | Municipal | 68 | $73,733 | +$12,733 | #729 |
| 2 | Sandy Springs Police Department | Municipal | 149 | $71,686 | +$10,686 | #836 |
| 3 | Georgia Bureau of Investigation | State | 338 | $64,977 | +$3,977 | #1,265 |
| 4 | Duluth Police Department | Municipal | 57 | $64,755 | +$3,755 | #1,279 |
| 5 | Garden City Police Department | Municipal | 35 | $64,072 | +$3,072 | #1,314 |
| 6 | Georgia State Patrol | State | — | $63,684 | +$2,684 | #1,336 |
| 7 | South Fulton Police Department | Municipal | 213 | $63,440 | +$2,440 | #1,354 |
| 8 | Hall County Sheriff's Office | County | 283 | $63,365 | +$2,365 | #1,359 |
| 9 | Roswell Police Department | Municipal | 154 | $62,462 | +$1,462 | #1,413 |
| 10 | Dunwoody Police Department | Municipal | 66 | $62,301 | +$1,301 | #1,428 |
| 11 | Savannah Police Department | Municipal | 425 | $61,989 | +$989 | #1,450 |
| 12 | Alpharetta Police Department | Municipal | 105 | $61,100 | +$100 | #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.
Scan to install
