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Shawnee 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.
Shawnee Police Department starts at $64,114 a year — about $30.82 an hour on a 2,080-hour year, before overtime. That is $2,571 below the median of the 2,288 agencies on this list, and $4,026 below the median for municipal agencies.
Cost of livingPrices in Kansas run about 10% below the national average, so this goes about as far as $71,184 would somewhere at average prices — $7,070 more than the headline figure. Most of that is rent, at 71 against a national average of 100, where goods are 94. 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 isShawnee Police Department reported 94 sworn officers and 22 civilian staff to the FBI for 2025. That is 1.3 officers per 1,000 residents, over a population of 70,311.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.
About Shawnee
The Shawnee Police Department serves the city of Shawnee, Kansas, in Johnson County on the Kansas side of the Kansas City metropolitan area. The FBI's law enforcement employment tables put it at 94 sworn officers serving about 70,300 people. The Department states its values as Integrity, Teamwork, Professionalism and Dedication. New officers are paid in full through a fourteen-week police academy and a field training programme of about fourteen weeks, and the City publishes a full officer pay ladder running from the recruit rate to a Master Police Officer band of $88,587 to $104,250; certified officers joining from elsewhere may be awarded up to five years of service credit at the Chief's discretion.
Where the figure comes from
Checked 20 September 2026. City of Shawnee, Career Opportunities — police pay scale: "Recruit Police Officer - $64,114 (Starting, no lateral experience)" — open the source document
$64,114 is the City's own annual figure and no arithmetic has been applied to it. THE ENTRY TEST IS SETTLED BY THE CITY'S OWN PARENTHESIS: the class is published as 'Recruit Police Officer - $64,114 (Starting, no lateral experience)'. The word Recruit is the class NAME, not an academy wage - the City states that officers receive full pay and benefits during the fourteen-week Police Academy and the roughly fourteen-week Field Training Program, so this rate runs through training and there is no separate lower academy wage and no higher post-academy step until the 1 Year Police Officer band at $67,319-$70,758. Prior sworn service is priced elsewhere: certified officers are awarded up to five years of completed service at the discretion of the Chief of Police, which moves them UP the published ladder. Excluded from the figure: the $2,000 new-hire bonus for commissioned officers and the $2,000 bonus for certified officers hired. The bands above - one year through eight-to-eleven years, and Master Police Officer at $88,587-$104,250 - are later steps and are not used. THE FIGURE CARRIES NO EFFECTIVE DATE. NEXT DOCUMENT: the City of Shawnee pay plan or adopted budget, which would date the ladder. NAME TRAP: Shawnee, Kansas, in Johnson County, is NOT Shawnee, Oklahoma, which runs its own department at shawneeok.org, and is not the Shawnee County Sheriff's Office around Topeka.
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 Shawnee 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. Shawnee starts at $64,114, so $4,026 below the municipal middle.
How it ranks
Common questions
How much does a Shawnee Police Department officer make?
Shawnee Police Department starts a new officer on $64,114 a year, about $30.82 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 Shawnee, Career Opportunities — police pay scale: "Recruit Police Officer - $64,114 (Starting, no lateral experience)".
Is that good pay for a police officer in Kansas?
It ranks #7 of 22 agencies we have verified in Kansas — 15 pay less, 6 pay more in the state — and #1,311 of 2,288 nationally. Against the national median it is $2,571 below, and against other municipal agencies $4,026 below.
Compare with another department
Put Shawnee 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 KS
| # | Agency | Level | Sworn # | Entry pay | Vs Shawnee | National |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wichita Police Department | Municipal | 663 | $70,970 | +$6,856 | #879 |
| 2 | Kansas Highway Patrol | State | 467 | $68,182 | +$4,068 | #1,041 |
| 3 | Lenexa Police Department | Municipal | 93 | $66,013 | +$1,899 | #1,184 |
| 4 | Prairie Village Police Department | Municipal | 46 | $65,975 | +$1,861 | #1,186 |
| 5 | Topeka Police Department | Municipal | 273 | $65,374 | +$1,260 | #1,232 |
| 6 | Olathe Police Department | Municipal | 210 | $65,050 | +$936 | #1,253 |
| 8 | Leawood Police Department | Municipal | 61 | $63,036 | −$1,078 | #1,382 |
| 9 | Lawrence Police Department | Municipal | — | $62,462 | −$1,652 | #1,414 |
| 10 | Johnson County Sheriff's Office | County | 488 | $62,400 | −$1,714 | #1,423 |
| 11 | University of Kansas Police Department | Special jurisdiction | 28 | $60,180 | −$3,934 | #1,553 |
| 12 | Shawnee County Sheriff's Office | County | 117 | $60,029 | −$4,085 | #1,563 |
| 13 | Saline County Sheriff's Office | County | 41 | $57,866 | −$6,248 | #1,693 |
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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