Home › Police pay › California › Plumas County Sheriff's Office
Plumas 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.
Plumas County Sheriff's Office starts at $59,072 a year — about $28.40 an hour on a 2,080-hour year, before overtime. That is $7,613 below the median of the 2,288 agencies on this list, and $4,488 below the median for county agencies.
Cost of livingPrices in California run about 11% above the national average, so this is worth roughly $53,353 somewhere at average prices — $5,719 less than the headline figure. Most of that is utilities, at 159 against a national average of 100, where goods are 106. 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 isPlumas County Sheriff's Office reported 37 sworn officers and 22 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 Plumas County says about itself
It is the mission of the Plumas County Sheriff's Office to serve our community by delivering fair and ethical law enforcement, protecting the innocent, apprehending criminals, maintaining public order, providing for the care and custody of prisoners, and establishing the cause, manner, and mechanism of death in Coroner's cases.
What Plumas County does
The Plumas County Sheriff's Office polices the northern Sierra Nevada county from Quincy and holds the coroner's function as well as the jail. The County prices its sworn deputies on a five-step hourly schedule with no cadet or recruit class beneath them, hiring at Deputy Sheriff I and requiring the POST academy within a year of appointment, then promoting to the journey-level Deputy Sheriff II after a year's service, with Intermediate and Advanced variants above that.
Where the figure comes from
Checked 21 September 2026. County of Plumas Pay Schedule, Sheriff Employee Assc unit, hourly rate — "DEPUTY SHERIFF 1 $28.40 $29.83 $31.34 $32.91 $34.56", Step 1 of five. The schedule is headed "Effective as of 06/02/2026 per Board of Supervisors Resolution No. 2026-9154 ... and adopted by the Board as of 08/04/2026 per Res. Number 2026-9182". — open the source document
$28.40 an hour is the only form the County publishes the rate in - the whole schedule is an HOURLY RATE table with no annual column and no hours statement anywhere on it. $59,072.00 is that rate at 2,080 hours, the same annualisation this roster applies to every hourly-only source, named here rather than hidden. THE COUNTY PRICES NO CADET, RECRUIT OR TRAINEE CLASS AT ALL - the Sheriff Employee Association schedule carries twenty-two classes and the lowest sworn one is Deputy Sheriff 1. THE CLASS SPECIFICATION SETTLES WHAT THAT MEANS AND IT IS THE OPELIKA SHAPE: Deputy Sheriff I "is the entry and training classification for the performance of professional law enforcement work", incumbents "are expected to undergo formal training in an academy certified by the" POST commission and must complete it "within one (1) year of initial" appointment, and "Some previous basic law enforcement experience is desirable" - desirable, not required. So the County hires at this class before the academy and pays this rate from day one. THE STEP UP IS EXPERIENCE-GATED, which is the test: Deputy Sheriff II is "a fully trained journey level classification" wanting "One (1) year of previous law enforcement experience equivalent to Deputy Sheriff I". Excluded from the figure: Deputy Sheriff 2 at $31.28 and its INTERMEDIATE and ADVANCED variants at $32.23 and $32.93, which track POST certificate levels earned in service; the four steps above $28.40, topping out at $34.56; and the custody ladder, CORRECTIONAL OFFICER 1 at $25.06, which is corrections and not patrol.
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 Plumas 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. Plumas County starts at $59,072, so $4,493 below the county middle.
How it ranks
Common questions
How much does a Plumas County Sheriff's Office officer make?
Plumas County Sheriff's Office starts a new officer on $59,072 a year, about $28.40 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 County of Plumas Pay Schedule, Sheriff Employee Assc unit, hourly rate — "DEPUTY SHERIFF 1 $28.40 $29.83 $31.34 $32.91 $34.56", Step 1 of five. The schedule is headed "Effective as of 06/02/2026 per Board of Supervisors Resolution No. 2026-9154 ... and adopted by the Board as of 08/04/2026 per Res. Number 2026-9182"..
Is that good pay for a police officer in California?
It ranks #271 of 278 agencies we have verified in California — 7 pay less, 270 pay more in the state — and #1,622 of 2,288 nationally. Against the national median it is $7,613 below, and against other county agencies $4,488 below.
Compare with another department
Put Plumas 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 CA
| # | Agency | Level | Sworn # | Entry pay | Vs Plumas | National |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Santa Clara Police Department | Municipal | 141 | $163,619 | +$104,547 | #1 |
| 2 | Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety | Municipal | 227 | $149,443 | +$90,371 | #2 |
| 3 | Redwood City Police Department | Municipal | 83 | $147,942 | +$88,870 | #3 |
| 4 | San Jose Police Department | Municipal | 1,065 | $144,003 | +$84,931 | #4 |
| 5 | Mountain View Police Department | Municipal | 90 | $143,096 | +$84,024 | #5 |
| 6 | San Mateo Police Department | Municipal | 111 | $141,024 | +$81,952 | #6 |
| 7 | Los Altos Police Department | Municipal | 31 | $139,740 | +$80,668 | #7 |
| 8 | Hayward Police Department | Municipal | 171 | $138,965 | +$79,893 | #8 |
| 9 | Milpitas Police Department | Municipal | 84 | $138,261 | +$79,189 | #9 |
| 10 | Los Gatos Police Department | Municipal | 34 | $132,394 | +$73,322 | #10 |
| 11 | Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office | County | 1,071 | $132,263 | +$73,191 | #11 |
| 12 | Menlo Park Police Department | Municipal | 43 | $132,036 | +$72,964 | #12 |
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
