Trenton Police Department entry pay

What Trenton says about itself

The Trenton Police Department is dedicated to the citizens of the City of Trenton! We are a professional community oriented police department whose goal is to ensure the safety of its citizens.

What Trenton does

The Trenton Police Department serves Trenton, New Jersey, the state capital, and is organised into the Office of the Police Director, Administrative Services, Communications, Criminal Investigation, Fiscal Management, Information Technology, Internal Affairs, Patrol and Special Operations. Its patrol officers have worked steady twelve-hour Pitman shifts since July 2015, on three shifts starting at 6am, 3pm and 6pm, and are not rotated between them.

Where the figure comes from

Checked 21 September 2026. NJ PERC-filed agreement, City of Trenton and NJ State PBA Local No. 11, Article IX §9.01 — guide for those hired after 1/1/2015, "Probation | 8 Months", 2023 column: $48,717. — open the source document
$48,717 is the guide's own figure for the probationary step in its last printed column and no arithmetic has been applied to it. THE ACADEMY RATE IS PRICED SEPARATELY AND IS EXPLICITLY NOT THE FIGURE: "Academy | 4 Months" reads $40,745 in the same column, and the agreement states the gate in words rather than leaving it to be inferred - "Newly hired officers shall be paid at the Academy Rate until Graduation from the Police Training Academy. They shall then be paid at the probationary rate for their 12-month probationary period." The step lands ON GRADUATION, which makes this the Berkeley County reading and the post-academy rate the entry figure. The agreement adds that "Academy time (four months) does not count toward increments". Excluded from the figure: the detective differential of 3 per cent, the $600 night-shift differential, longevity, holiday pay and breathalyzer pay. ALSO DELIBERATELY NOT APPLIED: an 11.75 per cent one-time base adjustment tied to the 2015 introduction of the Pitman schedule, which reads as already inside a table that begins in 2018 - applying it again would double-count. THE CONTRACT HAS EXPIRED AND THAT IS NAMED, NOT HIDDEN: the 2023 column is the last printed and the term ran to 31 December 2023, so this is the most recent guide the City has filed rather than a current-year rate. TWO CONTRADICTIONS INSIDE THE ONE FILING ARE RECORDED RATHER THAN RESOLVED: the title page says the term is 2019 to 2023 while the Council resolution bound into the same PDF authorises 2019 to 2024, and the table labels the probationary step "8 Months" while the text says the probationary period is twelve months - reconcilable as four months academy plus eight months probation, but the document does not say so.
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.

Entry pay, 2019–2023

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.

In effect

How this level compares

Where Trenton 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 Trenton Police Department officer make?

Trenton Police Department starts a new officer on $48,717 a year, about $23.42 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 NJ PERC-filed agreement, City of Trenton and NJ State PBA Local No. 11, Article IX §9.01 — guide for those hired after 1/1/2015, "Probation | 8 Months", 2023 column: $48,717..

Is that good pay for a police officer in New Jersey?

It ranks #24 of 27 agencies we have verified in New Jersey — 3 pay less, 23 pay more in the state — and #2,126 of 2,288 nationally. Against the national median it is $17,968 below, and against other municipal agencies $19,423 below.

The agencies either side of it