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Farmington 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.
Farmington Police Department starts at $66,102 a year — about $31.78 an hour on a 2,080-hour year, before overtime. That is $583 below the median of the 2,288 agencies on this list, and $2,038 below the median for municipal agencies.
Cost of livingPrices in New Mexico run about 8% below the national average, so this goes about as far as $71,685 would somewhere at average prices — $5,583 more than the headline figure. Most of that is rent, at 74 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 isFarmington Police Department reported 119 sworn officers and 47 civilian staff to the FBI for 2025. That is 2.6 officers per 1,000 residents, over a population of 46,204.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 Farmington says about itself
The Farmington Police Department is an internationally accredited and progressive law enforcement agency committed to maintaining the highest standards of personal and organizational integrity while providing our community with a superior level of service.
What Farmington does
The Farmington Police Department is the city force for Farmington in San Juan County, north-west New Mexico, and describes itself as the largest police agency in the Four Corners area. It is internationally accredited through CALEA. The Patrol Division covers the city around the clock across four shifts and every officer serves there before becoming eligible for a specialty unit; the specialties include K9, SWAT, bomb squad, crisis negotiation, detectives, undercover narcotics, a gangs and impact team, traffic, bicycle patrol, school resource officers and a District Coordinator Unit of one corporal and five officers assigned to specific areas of the city for community policing and problem solving. Recruits enter as academy cadets and the academy is affiliated with San Juan College, so cadets earn college credit during training, then move to field training; qualified laterals go into a modified field training programme instead. Officers work a four-day week, get take-home vehicles, a paid on-duty workout hour with a gym on site, a work phone, uniforms and gear provided, and a defined benefit pension paying 75 per cent of salary at 25 years of service.
Where the figure comes from
Checked 10 September 2026. Farmington Police Department recruitment site (Join Farmington PD), Benefit Info — Compensation, entry-level officer starting wage — open the source document
Read 10 September 2026 from the department's own recruitment site, which publishes the rate and its own annual conversion: hourly wage for entry-level officers starts at $31.78 an hour, $66,102 a year, and CADETS ARE PAID AT THIS RATE WHILE IN THE ACADEMY. Top of the officer range is $41.86 an hour, $87,068 a year. THE ENTRY TEST IS SETTLED TWICE OVER ON THE SAME PAGE: the figure is explicitly the academy cadet rate, and lateral officers start between $31.78 and $41.86 depending on experience - the same floor, with experience buying upward from it. Excluded: the $15,000 entry-level hiring bonus ($29,100 for laterals), military and education hiring incentives of $5,000 to $10,000 to a maximum package of $39,100, education pay of $1.67 per credit hour to $209 a month for a Master's, swing shift differential of $0.75 an hour and graveyard $1.50, longevity from $1.75 an hour at three years to $4.50 at twenty, and specialty stipends of $0.69 an hour for up to two specialties. Overtime is paid beyond 40 hours a week with a two-hour minimum for off-duty court attendance. A SEARCH SNIPPET FOR THIS SAME PAGE STILL CARRIED THE OLD $31.00 / $64,480 FIGURES; the live page was read directly and is what is published here.
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 Farmington 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. Farmington starts at $66,102, so $2,038 below the municipal middle.
How it ranks
Common questions
How much does a Farmington Police Department officer make?
Farmington Police Department starts a new officer on $66,102 a year, about $31.78 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 Farmington Police Department recruitment site (Join Farmington PD), Benefit Info — Compensation, entry-level officer starting wage.
Is that good pay for a police officer in New Mexico?
It ranks #4 of 22 agencies we have verified in New Mexico — 18 pay less, 3 pay more in the state — and #1,179 of 2,288 nationally. Against the national median it is $583 below, and against other municipal agencies $2,038 below.
Compare with another department
Put Farmington 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 NM
| # | Agency | Level | Sworn # | Entry pay | Vs Farmington | National |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Santa Fe Police Department | Municipal | — | $75,046 | +$8,944 | #674 |
| 2 | New Mexico State Police | State | 1,174 | $70,845 | +$4,743 | #891 |
| 3 | Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office | County | 141 | $68,318 | +$2,216 | #1,032 |
| 5 | Albuquerque Police Department | Municipal | 966 | $65,499 | −$603 | #1,220 |
| 6 | San Juan County Sheriff's Office | County | 86 | $63,045 | −$3,057 | #1,381 |
| 7 | Las Vegas Police Department | Municipal | 27 | $62,400 | −$3,702 | #1,424 |
| 8 | Valencia County Sheriff's Office | County | 48 | $62,150 | −$3,952 | #1,439 |
| 9 | Lincoln County Sheriff's Office | County | — | $60,757 | −$5,345 | #1,520 |
| 10 | Carlsbad Police Department | Municipal | 57 | $59,842 | −$6,260 | #1,589 |
| 11 | McKinley County Sheriff's Office | County | 37 | $59,675 | −$6,427 | #1,598 |
| 12 | Los Lunas Police Department | Municipal | — | $59,212 | −$6,890 | #1,620 |
| 13 | Belen Police Department | Municipal | — | $57,845 | −$8,257 | #1,696 |
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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