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Pawtucket 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.
Pawtucket Police Department starts at $66,402 a year — about $31.92 an hour on a 2,080-hour year, before overtime. That is $283 below the median of the 2,288 agencies on this list, and $1,738 below the median for municipal agencies.
Cost of livingPrices in Rhode Island run about 2% above the national average, so this is worth roughly $64,922 somewhere at average prices — $1,480 less than the headline figure. That average hides a wide spread: utilities at 147, where goods are 97. 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 isPawtucket Police Department reported 145 sworn officers and 28 civilian staff to the FBI for 2025. That is 1.9 officers per 1,000 residents, over a population of 77,252.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 Pawtucket says about itself
The mission of the Pawtucket Police Department is to protect life, property and civil order while creating and maintaining a proactive partnership with our residential and business community in an effort to enhance public safety and reduce the fear and incidence of crime within the City of Pawtucket.
What Pawtucket does
The City of Pawtucket has had a full-time police force since its incorporation in 1886, and the department operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year with about 153 sworn officers and roughly 50 civilian support staff from headquarters on Roosevelt Avenue, where it has been since the 1930s. Alongside patrol it runs a detective division with a major crimes unit, a youth services bureau, a special squad covering narcotics, trafficking, gambling and weapons, a prosecution unit, a motor unit trained through the state academy, a re-established special response team and a community police unit that oversees the school resource officers, an elderly affairs officer and the police explorers
Where the figure comes from
Checked 6 September 2026. Pawtucket Police Department recruitment site — New Officer pay scale — open the source document
The Department's own recruitment site, read 6 September 2026: a new officer earns $66,401.86 in year 1, $75,422.16 in year 2, $88,735.27 in year 3, the same in year 4 and $95,255.42 in year 5. The Department states the year 1 figure INCLUDES half a year of holiday pay, and the later figures include holiday pay and clothing allowance, so this is not a bare base rate. Applications are open at all times and the separate lateral transfer route is advertised apart from this one, so no certification or prior sworn service is required. Candidates pass a Fit2Serve physical agility test to the Rhode Island Police Commission on Standards and Training standard
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 Pawtucket 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. Pawtucket starts at $66,402, so $1,738 below the municipal middle.
How it ranks
Common questions
How much does a Pawtucket Police Department officer make?
Pawtucket Police Department starts a new officer on $66,402 a year, about $31.92 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 Pawtucket Police Department recruitment site — New Officer pay scale.
Is that good pay for a police officer in Rhode Island?
It ranks #9 of 17 agencies we have verified in Rhode Island — 8 pay less, 8 pay more in the state — and #1,167 of 2,288 nationally. Against the national median it is $283 below, and against other municipal agencies $1,738 below.
Compare with another department
Put Pawtucket 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 RI
| # | Agency | Level | Sworn # | Entry pay | Vs Pawtucket | National |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management — Division of Law Enforcement / Environmental Police | State | 32 | $90,850 | +$24,448 | #249 |
| 2 | Smithfield Police Department | Municipal | 46 | $82,885 | +$16,483 | #407 |
| 3 | Rhode Island State Police | State | 267 | $81,579 | +$15,177 | #437 |
| 4 | Providence Police Department | Municipal | 435 | $81,468 | +$15,067 | #441 |
| 5 | North Providence Police Department | Municipal | — | $71,787 | +$5,385 | #829 |
| 6 | Burrillville Police Department | Municipal | 24 | $70,484 | +$4,082 | #908 |
| 7 | East Providence Police Department | Municipal | 86 | $69,155 | +$2,753 | #983 |
| 8 | Lincoln Police Department | Municipal | 40 | $69,000 | +$2,598 | #991 |
| 10 | Warwick Police Department | Municipal | 169 | $65,739 | −$662 | #1,204 |
| 11 | North Kingstown Police Department | Municipal | — | $65,012 | −$1,390 | #1,255 |
| 12 | Portsmouth Police Department | Municipal | 39 | $64,358 | −$2,044 | #1,297 |
| 13 | Cranston Police Department | Municipal | 147 | $63,309 | −$3,093 | #1,364 |
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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