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Simi Valley 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.
Simi Valley Police Department starts at $101,331 a year — about $48.72 an hour on a 2,080-hour year, before overtime. That is $34,646 above the median of the 2,288 agencies on this list, and $33,191 above the median for municipal agencies.
Cost of livingPrices in California run about 11% above the national average, so this is worth roughly $91,520 somewhere at average prices — $9,811 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 isSimi Valley Police Department reported 116 sworn officers and 52 civilian staff to the FBI for 2025. That is 0.9 officers per 1,000 residents, over a population of 125,637.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 Simi Valley says about itself
The Simi Valley Police Department is organized into two Divisions: Operations Division, Investigative Division.
What Simi Valley does
The Simi Valley Police Department serves the city of Simi Valley, California, in Ventura County, and is organised into an Operations Division and an Investigative Division. Its sworn officers are represented by a police association whose agreement puts the unit on a four-day ten-hour week and moves patrol and traffic officers between shifts roughly every four months by seniority. The City's publicly available pay schedule carries a flat-rate Police Officer Trainee class beneath the sworn range and a promotional Senior Police Officer class above it.
Where the figure comes from
Checked 21 September 2026. City of Simi Valley, Resolution No. 2026-38 approving the citywide publicly available pay schedule — POA salary steps effective 6/29/26, Police Officer hourly base rate Step 1: $48.7166. — open the source document
$48.7166 an hour is the City's own Step 1 rate and IS THE ONLY FORM THE CITY PUBLISHES IT IN. $101,330.53 is that rate at 2,080 hours, the same annualisation this roster applies to every hourly-only source, named here rather than hidden. THE TRAINEE CLASS IS ON THE SAME SCHEDULE AND IS NOT THE FIGURE: "GP31 Police Officer Trainee 42.6270 $ - 42.6270 $ 06/29/2026", a single flat rate with no range, in a different bargaining group from the sworn class. AND THERE IS A SECOND TRAP ON THE SAME PAGE THAT IS EASIER TO FALL INTO: the schedule carries a third sworn class, SENIOR POLICE OFFICER, whose hourly base rate STARTS LOWER at $44.9545 across nine steps. It is not the entry class and reading it as one would understate the figure by nearly four dollars an hour - the agreement's article 18 states "In order to be promoted to Senior Police Officer classification, a Police Officer shall...", so it sits ABOVE Police Officer and is reached by promotion. Entry is Police Officer Step 1. THE FIGURE IS DATED BY THE RESOLUTION ITSELF, the class line carrying 29 June 2026 and the schedule effective 13 July 2026.
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 Simi Valley 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. Simi Valley starts at $101,331, so $33,191 above the municipal middle.
How it ranks
Common questions
How much does a Simi Valley Police Department officer make?
Simi Valley Police Department starts a new officer on $101,331 a year, about $48.72 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 Simi Valley, Resolution No. 2026-38 approving the citywide publicly available pay schedule — POA salary steps effective 6/29/26, Police Officer hourly base rate Step 1: $48.7166..
Is that good pay for a police officer in California?
It ranks #107 of 278 agencies we have verified in California — 171 pay less, 106 pay more in the state — and #117 of 2,288 nationally. Against the national median it is $34,646 above, and against other municipal agencies $33,191 above.
Compare with another department
Put Simi Valley 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 Simi | National |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Santa Clara Police Department | Municipal | 141 | $163,619 | +$62,289 | #1 |
| 2 | Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety | Municipal | 227 | $149,443 | +$48,112 | #2 |
| 3 | Redwood City Police Department | Municipal | 83 | $147,942 | +$46,612 | #3 |
| 4 | San Jose Police Department | Municipal | 1,065 | $144,003 | +$42,673 | #4 |
| 5 | Mountain View Police Department | Municipal | 90 | $143,096 | +$41,765 | #5 |
| 6 | San Mateo Police Department | Municipal | 111 | $141,024 | +$39,693 | #6 |
| 7 | Los Altos Police Department | Municipal | 31 | $139,740 | +$38,409 | #7 |
| 8 | Hayward Police Department | Municipal | 171 | $138,965 | +$37,634 | #8 |
| 9 | Milpitas Police Department | Municipal | 84 | $138,261 | +$36,930 | #9 |
| 10 | Los Gatos Police Department | Municipal | 34 | $132,394 | +$31,063 | #10 |
| 11 | Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office | County | 1,071 | $132,263 | +$30,933 | #11 |
| 12 | Menlo Park Police Department | Municipal | 43 | $132,036 | +$30,705 | #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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