Home › Police pay › Georgia › Pickens County Sheriff's Office
Pickens County Sheriff's Office 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.
Pickens County Sheriff's Office starts at $51,661 a year — about $24.84 an hour on a 2,080-hour year, before overtime. That is $15,024 below the median of the 2,288 agencies on this list, and $11,899 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 $53,650 would somewhere at average prices — $1,989 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 isPickens County Sheriff's Office reported 73 sworn officers and 29 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 Pickens County says about itself
Our mission is to partner with and serve the citizens of our community by providing effective, ethical and efficient law enforcement service for all.
What Pickens County does
The Pickens County Sheriff's Office serves Pickens County, Georgia, in the north Georgia mountains, from 2985 Camp Road in Jasper. The Office describes itself as an agency of 100 employees serving the 33,000 people of the county across its 233 square miles. It runs Uniform Patrol, the Adult Detention Center, Campus Law Enforcement, Administration, Court Services, Criminal Investigations, the Cherokee Multi-Agency Narcotics Squad, Training, SWAT, a Special Response Team and a K-9 Unit. It prices two starting salaries, one for uncertified and one for already-certified deputies, and separately values its sixteen paid holidays at $2,956 a year.
Where the figure comes from
Checked 20 September 2026. Pickens Sheriff's Office Career — Starting Salary: "Deputy Sheriff Level 1 (Uncertified) $51,661 annual" — open the source document
$51,661 is the Office's own annual base figure and no arithmetic has been applied to it. The page is titled Starting Salary and gives two starting salaries side by side - Deputy Sheriff Level 1 (Uncertified) $51,661, and Deputy Sheriff Level 2 (Certified) $57,453 - so the figures are what a candidate STARTS at according to what they arrive holding. The uncertified figure is the one taken: a candidate with no prior sworn service arrives uncertified. Excluded from the figure: the sixteen paid holidays the Office prices separately at $2,956, which it adds to reach a stated total annual of $54,617; the holiday total is not base pay and is not used. OPEN AND RECORDED RATHER THAN RESOLVED - THIS IS THE WEAKNESS IN THIS ROW: the Office nowhere says whether a Level 1 deputy moves to Level 2 pay on completing the Georgia POST academy, or whether Level 2 is reached only by arriving certified. If the former, $57,453 is the post-academy rate and would supersede this figure, the same reading already applied to Rutland City, South Burlington and Brandon. The careers site's hiring-process and benefits pages do not say, and the benefits page 404s. NEXT DOCUMENT: the Pickens County pay plan or the Sheriff's Office policy on certification pay. NAME TRAP, AND IT NEARLY COST A ROW: pickenssheriffcareers.com is Pickens County GEORGIA - 'the gateway to the North Georgia Mountains' - and NOT Pickens County, South Carolina, which is a separate sheriff's office with 161 sworn and is still open.
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 Pickens 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. Pickens County starts at $51,661, so $11,904 below the county middle.
How it ranks
Common questions
How much does a Pickens County Sheriff's Office officer make?
Pickens County Sheriff's Office starts a new officer on $51,661 a year, about $24.84 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 Pickens Sheriff's Office Career — Starting Salary: "Deputy Sheriff Level 1 (Uncertified) $51,661 annual".
Is that good pay for a police officer in Georgia?
It ranks #60 of 80 agencies we have verified in Georgia — 20 pay less, 59 pay more in the state — and #2,006 of 2,288 nationally. Against the national median it is $15,024 below, and against other county agencies $11,899 below.
Compare with another department
Put Pickens County Sheriff's Office 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 Pickens | National |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chamblee Police Department | Municipal | 68 | $73,733 | +$22,072 | #729 |
| 2 | Sandy Springs Police Department | Municipal | 149 | $71,686 | +$20,025 | #836 |
| 3 | Georgia Bureau of Investigation | State | 338 | $64,977 | +$13,316 | #1,265 |
| 4 | Duluth Police Department | Municipal | 57 | $64,755 | +$13,094 | #1,279 |
| 5 | Garden City Police Department | Municipal | 35 | $64,072 | +$12,411 | #1,314 |
| 6 | Georgia State Patrol | State | — | $63,684 | +$12,023 | #1,336 |
| 7 | South Fulton Police Department | Municipal | 213 | $63,440 | +$11,779 | #1,354 |
| 8 | Hall County Sheriff's Office | County | 283 | $63,365 | +$11,704 | #1,359 |
| 9 | Roswell Police Department | Municipal | 154 | $62,462 | +$10,801 | #1,413 |
| 10 | Dunwoody Police Department | Municipal | 66 | $62,301 | +$10,640 | #1,428 |
| 11 | Savannah Police Department | Municipal | 425 | $61,989 | +$10,328 | #1,450 |
| 12 | Alpharetta Police Department | Municipal | 105 | $61,100 | +$9,439 | #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
