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Redding 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.
Redding Police Department starts at $82,763 a year — about $39.79 an hour on a 2,080-hour year, before overtime. That is $16,078 above the median of the 2,288 agencies on this list, and $14,623 above the median for municipal agencies.
Cost of livingPrices in California run about 11% above the national average, so this is worth roughly $74,750 somewhere at average prices — $8,013 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 isRedding Police Department reported 107 sworn officers and 42 civilian staff to the FBI for 2025. That is 1.1 officers per 1,000 residents, over a population of 93,429.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 Redding says about itself
The Field Operations Division is the fundamental service delivery team of the police department. It consists of all the personnel you might see in uniform, usually driving marked police vehicles. This division accounts for over 70% of the police department's measurable workload.
What Redding does
The Redding Police Department serves the city of Redding, California, the seat of Shasta County at the head of the Sacramento Valley. Its officers are represented by the Peace Officers Association of Redding, whose agreement prices a flat-rate Police Recruit class beneath a nine-step Police Officer range and offers three work schedules - eight, ten and twelve-and-a-half hour shifts - with watch and days off selected by seniority and rotated every four months. Its Field Operations Division accounts for over seventy per cent of the Department's measurable workload.
Where the figure comes from
Checked 21 September 2026. City of Redding, Peace Officers Association of Redding Exhibit "A-3", effective 28 September 2025 — "660 Police Officer $39.79" (step 1 of a nine-step hourly range). — open the source document
$39.79 an hour is the City's own step 1 rate for job class 660 and IS THE ONLY FORM THE CITY PUBLISHES IT IN. $82,763.20 is that rate at 2,080 hours, the same annualisation this roster applies to every hourly-only source, named here rather than hidden. THE RECRUIT CLASS IS ON THE SAME LINE OF THE SAME EXHIBIT AND IS NOT THE FIGURE: "680 Police Recruit $33.97", a single flat rate with no steps, printed immediately above Police Officer with the same effective date. The nine-step range tops out at $58.78 and that is a ceiling. THE FIGURE IS DATED BY THE EXHIBIT ITSELF, 28 September 2025. A PATH CORRECTION WORTH KEEPING: the filename an earlier pass recorded, .../Salary Schedules/RPOA.pdf, is DEAD - it 404s. The City now dates its filenames and serves them from a /Departments/Personnel/ path.
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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Entry pay, 2022–2025
Every point is the entry-class annual base printed in the agency’s own pay document. Base pay only — no shift differential, incentives or allowances.
How this level compares
Where Redding 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. Redding starts at $82,763, so $14,623 above the municipal middle.
How it ranks
Common questions
How much does a Redding Police Department officer make?
Redding Police Department starts a new officer on $82,763 a year, about $39.79 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 Redding, Peace Officers Association of Redding Exhibit "A-3", effective 28 September 2025 — "660 Police Officer $39.79" (step 1 of a nine-step hourly range)..
Is that good pay for a police officer in California?
It ranks #218 of 278 agencies we have verified in California — 60 pay less, 217 pay more in the state — and #410 of 2,288 nationally. Against the national median it is $16,078 above, and against other municipal agencies $14,623 above.
Compare with another department
Put Redding 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 CA
| # | Agency | Level | Sworn # | Entry pay | Vs Redding | National |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Santa Clara Police Department | Municipal | 141 | $163,619 | +$80,856 | #1 |
| 2 | Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety | Municipal | 227 | $149,443 | +$66,680 | #2 |
| 3 | Redwood City Police Department | Municipal | 83 | $147,942 | +$65,179 | #3 |
| 4 | San Jose Police Department | Municipal | 1,065 | $144,003 | +$61,240 | #4 |
| 5 | Mountain View Police Department | Municipal | 90 | $143,096 | +$60,333 | #5 |
| 6 | San Mateo Police Department | Municipal | 111 | $141,024 | +$58,261 | #6 |
| 7 | Los Altos Police Department | Municipal | 31 | $139,740 | +$56,977 | #7 |
| 8 | Hayward Police Department | Municipal | 171 | $138,965 | +$56,202 | #8 |
| 9 | Milpitas Police Department | Municipal | 84 | $138,261 | +$55,498 | #9 |
| 10 | Los Gatos Police Department | Municipal | 34 | $132,394 | +$49,630 | #10 |
| 11 | Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office | County | 1,071 | $132,263 | +$49,500 | #11 |
| 12 | Menlo Park Police Department | Municipal | 43 | $132,036 | +$49,273 | #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.
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