Richmond County Sheriff's Office entry pay

What Richmond County says about itself

The Richmond County Sheriff's Office, a diverse organization of professional men and women, is the largest full-service Sheriff's Office in Georgia. Covering 328 square miles, three municipalities and a busy interstate highway, the Sheriff's Office uses community policing as a means to better understand the needs of the residents and create an information exchange corridor, resulting in a level of security that enhances the quality of life in Richmond County.

What Richmond County does

The Richmond County Sheriff's Office is the police force of Augusta, whose city and county governments consolidated, and it calls itself the largest full-service sheriff's office in Georgia. It covers 328 square miles, three municipalities and a busy stretch of interstate. Field Operations is the largest part of it: 237 certified officers across a North and a South precinct, each under a captain, with four patrol shifts to a precinct and deputies given permanent, non-rotating beats so they come to know their own ground. Beside patrol it runs criminal investigations, narcotics, traffic, civil process, community services, internal affairs, records, management services, the jail, and special operations that include SWAT, a bomb squad, a K-9 unit and a river patrol on the Savannah. Sheriff Brantley leads it, and the office is an accredited agency.

Where the figure comes from

Checked 22 September 2026. Richmond County Sheriff's Office, Salaries and Benefits: "Georgia P.O.S.T Certified Officer Starting Salary - Starting salary for a 84-hour Georgia P.O.S.T. Officer is $2,168.04 bi-weekly ($56,369.04 annually)." The same page states the rule that fixes it: "You will begin at the minimum salary specified for the position." — open the source document
$56,369.04 is the office's own annual and needs no conversion - it prints the bi-weekly and the annual side by side, $2,168.04 x 26. THE '84-HOUR' LABEL IS THE HOURS BASIS AND IT MATTERS: 84 hours a fortnight is 2,184 hours a year, not 2,080, which is what a twelve-hour patrol roster comes to and what the Field Operations page confirms - "The uniformed patrol shifts operate on two, 12-hour shifts." So this annual already carries the longer year, and it is NOT directly comparable with an hourly row on the roster converted at 2,080; at the same hourly rate a 2,080-hour agency would show about $53,670. THERE IS NO CADET OR NON-CERTIFIED DEPUTY RATE TO COMPETE WITH IT. The only non-certified line the office publishes is the Deputy Jailer, "$1,576.92 bi-weekly ($41,000.00 annually)", rising to "$1,971.48 bi-weekly ($51,248.48 annually)" on completing the Basic Jailer course - a detention class, not a patrol one, and still below the certified officer's start after its own course. THE FLOOR IS STATED OUTRIGHT, not inferred: "You will begin at the minimum salary specified for the position." PRIOR SERVICE IS PAID SEPARATELY AND THEREFORE DOES NOT MOVE THIS FIGURE - longevity and lateral pay is "$1,500.00 for every 5 years of service up to 20 years for a maximum amount of $6,000.00 annually", counting service "from another agency or military police", so a lateral starts on the same salary with an addition beside it. That addition is excluded here, as are the take-home vehicle and the uniforms, body armour, weapons and web gear the office provides.
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.

How this level compares

Where Richmond 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.

How it ranks

Common questions

How much does a Richmond County Sheriff's Office officer make?

Richmond County Sheriff's Office starts a new officer on $56,369 a year, about $27.10 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 Richmond County Sheriff's Office, Salaries and Benefits: "Georgia P.O.S.T Certified Officer Starting Salary - Starting salary for a 84-hour Georgia P.O.S.T. Officer is $2,168.04 bi-weekly ($56,369.04 annually)." The same page states the rule that fixes it: "You will begin at the minimum salary specified for the position.".

Is that good pay for a police officer in Georgia?

It ranks #37 of 80 agencies we have verified in Georgia — 43 pay less, 36 pay more in the state — and #1,780 of 2,288 nationally. Against the national median it is $10,316 below, and against other county agencies $7,191 below.

The agencies either side of it