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Paducah 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.
Paducah Police Department starts at $65,146 a year — about $31.32 an hour on a 2,080-hour year, before overtime. That is $2,121 below the median of the 2,053 agencies on this list, and $3,640 below the median for municipal agencies.
Cost of livingPrices in Kentucky run about 10% below the national average, so this goes about as far as $72,256 would somewhere at average prices — $7,111 more than the headline figure. Most of that is rent, at 64 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 isPaducah Police Department reported 68 sworn officers and 29 civilian staff to the FBI for 2025. That is 2.6 officers per 1,000 residents, over a population of 26,608.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.
About Paducah
The Paducah Police Department polices the city of Paducah in western Kentucky and shares the Paducah-McCracken 911 service. It runs administration, operations and support services divisions with a professional standards unit, and fields specialist teams including bomb squad, K-9, SWAT, collision reconstruction, digital forensics, crisis negotiation, honor guard and a drone unit. The department describes its approach as geographic policing built on its earlier community-policing work, addressing crime and the fear of crime through a shared relationship between citizens and officers in their own neighbourhoods.
Where the figure comes from
Checked 8 September 2026. City of Paducah official Police Officer posting on the City's own recruiting system, linked from the Paducah Police Department recruiting page — open the source document
Read 8 September 2026 from the City's own posting: Salary Description $31.32 hourly, $65,145.60 annually. The posting heads that figure 'Base Salary Description (Includes State Incentive Pay)' and then separately shows incentives of $4,653.00 taking a new officer to $69,798.60, so the base annual figure of $65,145.60 is what is recorded here and the incentive is left out. This is the entry route, not a lateral one: the City runs a separate Certified Police Officer posting for experienced applicants, and this posting requires no certification and no prior service - an applicant need only turn 21 before graduating from the 20-week Department of Criminal Justice Training basic academy at Richmond, hold a driver's license, and pass the fingerprint, vision and character checks. AUDITED 17 SEPTEMBER 2026 AGAINST THE DEPARTMENT'S OWN RECRUITING PAGE, WHICH CORROBORATES THE STRUCTURE BUT NOT THE NUMBER. `checked` NOT MOVED. paducahky.gov/departments/police/recruiting-and-hiring-police-and-911 names Paylocity Recruiting as the City's application system and lists its police postings as THREE SEPARATE ONES - Police Officer Recruit, Certified Police Officer and Telecommunicator. That is the agency's own page confirming, in its own words, the entry/lateral separation this row rests on, and it confirms the Paylocity tenant as the City's own channel rather than a third party we found by search. IT ALSO SHARPENS THE LATERAL DOOR: the certified route requires 'proof of at least one year of full-time law enforcement experience' for in-state applicants holding a POPS certificate, and reciprocity through the Kentucky Law Enforcement Council plus proof of equivalent experience for out-of-state applicants. A route that requires a year of full-time service is by definition not the entry route, so the recruit posting is. THE PAGE PUBLISHES NO FIGURE, so the $65,145.60 still rests on the Paylocity posting alone and the flag stays. ONE NAMING POINT FOR THE NEXT PASS: the PD page calls the entry posting 'Police Officer Recruit' while the cited posting is headed 'Police Officer' - check on the next read whether Paducah has renamed it or runs both.
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 Paducah 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 | $68,786 | $163,619 | 1372 |
| County | $35,000 | $64,438 | $132,263 | 459 |
| Special jurisdiction | $31,200 | $60,204 | $107,954 | 71 |
| State | $33,994 | $65,400 | $110,916 | 144 |
| 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 $4,700 more than the middle municipal agency and about $9,100 more than the middle county agency and about $13,300 more than the middle special jurisdiction agency and about $8,100 more than the middle state agency and about $45,300 more than the middle territory agency. Paducah starts at $65,146, so $3,640 below the municipal middle.
How it ranks
Common questions
How much does a Paducah Police Department officer make?
Paducah Police Department starts a new officer on $65,146 a year, about $31.32 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 Paducah official Police Officer posting on the City's own recruiting system, linked from the Paducah Police Department recruiting page.
Is that good pay for a police officer in Kentucky?
It ranks #3 of 14 agencies we have verified in Kentucky — 11 pay less, 2 pay more in the state — and #1,148 of 2,053 nationally. Against the national median it is $2,121 below, and against other municipal agencies $3,640 below.
Compare with another department
Put Paducah 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 KY
| # | Agency | Level | Sworn # | Entry pay | Vs Paducah | National |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kentucky State Police | State | 1,078 | $71,000 | +$5,854 | #808 |
| 2 | Louisville Metro Police Department | Municipal | 1,013 | $66,760 | +$1,614 | #1,054 |
| 4 | Lexington Police Department | Municipal | 541 | $64,424 | −$722 | #1,190 |
| 5 | Richmond Police Department | Municipal | 65 | $63,988 | −$1,158 | #1,211 |
| 6 | Bowling Green Police Department | Municipal | 140 | $63,839 | −$1,307 | #1,220 |
| 7 | University of Kentucky Police Department | Special jurisdiction | 76 | $63,200 | −$1,946 | #1,260 |
| 8 | Owensboro Police Department | Municipal | 101 | $62,254 | −$2,892 | #1,311 |
| 9 | Elizabethtown Police Department | Municipal | 77 | $57,200 | −$7,946 | #1,585 |
| 10 | Georgetown Police Department | Municipal | 75 | $55,345 | −$9,801 | #1,656 |
| 11 | Henderson Police Department | Municipal | 58 | $51,778 | −$13,367 | #1,806 |
| 12 | Hopkinsville Police Department | Municipal | 72 | $51,239 | −$13,907 | #1,821 |
| 13 | Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources — Law Enforcement Division | State | — | $47,794 | −$17,351 | #1,934 |
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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