Dublin Police Department entry pay

What Dublin says about itself

Dublin Police Department employees are committed to protecting life, liberty and property. We will provide the highest level of service and work in partnership with our community to ensure public safety. We will remain dedicated to service and committed to excellence.

What Dublin does

The Dublin Police Department serves the city of Dublin, Ohio, a Columbus suburb in Franklin County, from the Justice Center at 6565 Commerce Parkway, which is open around the clock. It is led by Chief Justin Páez, with Deputy Chiefs Greg Lattanzi over the Support Services Bureau and Nick Tabernik over the Operations Bureau, and states its core values as Professionalism, Integrity, Respect and Commitment. Officers work eight-hour shifts on a forty-hour week with the same days off each week, bidding for shift assignments once a year. The Department runs three hiring pathways - examination, application and resume, and lateral - and publishes its whole wage structure from the training step to Lieutenant.

Where the figure comes from

Checked 20 September 2026. City of Dublin, Apply Now: Dublin Police — wage structure: "Training Step $70,346.86 / $33.82" — open the source document
$70,346.86 is the City's own annual figure and no arithmetic has been applied to it; the hourly equivalent, $33.82, is printed beside it. The City publishes the whole wage structure: Training Step $70,346.86, Step 1 $76,241.34, Step 2 $87,496.13, Step 3 $98,756.98, Step 4 $113,597.24, then Sergeant $122,969.07 and Lieutenant $132,340.91. THE TRAINING STEP IS THE ENTRY FIGURE AND THE REASON IS THE ADVANCEMENT RULE, NOT THE LABEL: the City states officers 'will advance to the next highest step in the wage structure after one year of continuous service at the preceding step', and applies that one-year rule uniformly across every step including the first. So the Training Step is not an academy-only wage that ends at graduation - it runs a full year, covering the academy and the rest of the first year - and Step 1 is a twelve-month step. That is the same reading applied to Smyrna GA, and the opposite of Hilliard, Knoxville and West Virginia State Police, where the higher rate lands on finishing training. Prior sworn service is handled by a separate Lateral Pathway, which the City lists alongside its Examination and Application pathways and which does not require the physical fitness assessment. New hires must complete a state-certified peace officer basic training programme either before appointment or immediately upon it. THE TABLE IS LABELLED 2025, not 2026, which is the weakness here - NEXT DOCUMENT: the City of Dublin 2026 wage ordinance. NAME TRAP: Dublin, Ohio is a Columbus suburb; there are also Dublins in California and Georgia with their own departments. SHIFT PATTERN PUBLISHED: eight-hour shifts on a forty-hour week with the same days off each week, bid annually.
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 Dublin sits is partly about the agency and partly about which level of policing it belongs to. The three levels do not pay the same.

How it ranks

Common questions

How much does a Dublin Police Department officer make?

Dublin Police Department starts a new officer on $70,347 a year, about $33.82 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 City of Dublin, Apply Now: Dublin Police — wage structure: "Training Step $70,346.86 / $33.82".

Is that good pay for a police officer in Ohio?

It ranks #31 of 53 agencies we have verified in Ohio — 22 pay less, 30 pay more in the state — and #917 of 2,288 nationally. Against the national median it is $3,662 above, and against other municipal agencies $2,207 above.

The agencies either side of it