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Pocatello 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.
Pocatello Police Department starts at $60,278 a year — about $28.98 an hour on a 2,080-hour year, before overtime. That is $6,406 below the median of the 2,288 agencies on this list, and $7,862 below the median for municipal agencies.
Cost of livingPrices in Idaho run about 5% below the national average, so this goes about as far as $63,123 would somewhere at average prices — $2,844 more than the headline figure. Most of that is utilities, at 70 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 isPocatello Police Department reported 91 sworn officers and 46 civilian staff to the FBI for 2025. That is 1.6 officers per 1,000 residents, over a population of 58,690.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 Pocatello says about itself
The Pocatello Police Department is dedicated to the mission of community-oriented policing.
What Pocatello does
The Pocatello Police Department serves the city of Pocatello, Idaho, in Bannock County, and follows the police officer selection requirements set by the Idaho Peace Officer Standards and Training Council. It publishes a sworn pay sheet built on three shift columns - day, swing and midnight - each split between officers with and without a bachelor's degree, so a single entry step carries both a shift premium and an education premium above it, and it prices no academy or recruit class beneath the first year.
Where the figure comes from
Checked 21 September 2026. City of Pocatello, Careers with the Pocatello Police Department — "Sworn Pay" sheet, Day Shift Pay (No Degree), 0-1 Years of Experience: $28.98 per hour. Sheet marked "Updated Oct. 2025". — open the source document
$28.98 an hour is the City's own published rate for the bottom row of its sworn pay sheet - Day Shift, No Degree, 0-1 years of experience - and IS THE ONLY FORM THE CITY PUBLISHES IT IN. $60,278.40 is that rate at 2,080 hours, the same annualisation this roster applies to every hourly-only source, named here rather than hidden. THE SHEET IS PUBLISHED AS AN IMAGE AND WAS READ IN A BROWSER, not inferred: the figures below are transcribed from the City's own graphic at pocatello.gov/ImageRepository/Document?documentID=11125. DAY SHIFT IS THE BASE AND THE OTHER TWO COLUMNS ARE DIFFERENTIALS: the same 0-1 row reads $29.71 on swing and $30.43 on midnights, which are shift premiums on the same entry step and not different entry rates. THE NO-DEGREE COLUMN IS THE BASE: the bachelor-degree column reads $30.23 at 0-1 years, which is an education premium on the same step. POCATELLO PRICES NO CADET CLASS: the sheet is headed Sworn Pay and carries no academy, recruit or pre-service row beneath 0-1 years. Excluded from the figure: the physical fitness incentive ($10 to $30 a pay period by score), the education incentive ($5 a pay period by credential) and the lump-sum degree and POST certificate payments of $2,000 to $5,000. THE SHEET CARRIES ITS OWN DATE, "Updated Oct. 2025".
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 Pocatello 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. Pocatello starts at $60,278, so $7,862 below the municipal middle.
How it ranks
Common questions
How much does a Pocatello Police Department officer make?
Pocatello Police Department starts a new officer on $60,278 a year, about $28.98 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 Pocatello, Careers with the Pocatello Police Department — "Sworn Pay" sheet, Day Shift Pay (No Degree), 0-1 Years of Experience: $28.98 per hour. Sheet marked "Updated Oct. 2025"..
Is that good pay for a police officer in Idaho?
It ranks #16 of 54 agencies we have verified in Idaho — 38 pay less, 15 pay more in the state — and #1,547 of 2,288 nationally. Against the national median it is $6,406 below, and against other municipal agencies $7,862 below.
Compare with another department
Put Pocatello 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 ID
| # | Agency | Level | Sworn # | Entry pay | Vs Pocatello | National |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sun Valley Police Department | Municipal | 12 | $75,005 | +$14,726 | #675 |
| 2 | Blaine County Sheriff's Office | County | 20 | $74,526 | +$14,248 | #697 |
| 3 | Hailey Police Department | Municipal | — | $72,280 | +$12,002 | #797 |
| 4 | Boise Police Department | Municipal | 326 | $69,514 | +$9,235 | #965 |
| 5 | Meridian Police Department | Municipal | 109 | $67,621 | +$7,342 | #1,085 |
| 6 | Post Falls Police Department | Municipal | 52 | $67,330 | +$7,051 | #1,106 |
| 7 | Coeur d'Alene Police Department | Municipal | 94 | $66,872 | +$6,594 | #1,130 |
| 8 | Kootenai County Sheriff's Office | County | 104 | $65,291 | +$5,013 | #1,239 |
| 9 | Ada County Sheriff's Office | County | 220 | $64,896 | +$4,618 | #1,270 |
| 10 | Nampa Police Department | Municipal | 154 | $64,626 | +$4,347 | #1,286 |
| 11 | McCall Police Department | Municipal | 12 | $63,773 | +$3,494 | #1,332 |
| 12 | Moscow Police Department | Municipal | 30 | $63,544 | +$3,266 | #1,344 |
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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