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Tuolumne County Sheriff's Office 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.
Tuolumne County Sheriff's Office starts at $70,397 a year — about $33.84 an hour on a 2,080-hour year, before overtime. That is $3,712 above the median of the 2,288 agencies on this list, and $6,837 above the median for county agencies.
Cost of livingPrices in California run about 11% above the national average, so this is worth roughly $63,581 somewhere at average prices — $6,816 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 isTuolumne County Sheriff's Office reported 67 sworn officers and 81 civilian staff to the FBI for 2025.No rate is shown: this agency does not police a single population the FBI publishes a figure for. 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 Tuolumne County says about itself
The Tuolumne County Sheriff's Office is committed to keeping peace and order while protecting lives and property.
What Tuolumne County does
The Tuolumne County Sheriff's Office polices 2,274 square miles of the central Sierra Nevada from Sonora, serving about 54,000 residents and some 1.9 million visitors a year, and runs the Dambacher Detention Center. Its deputies are represented by the Deputy Sheriff's Association, whose agreement prices a separate Deputy Sheriff Recruit job code beneath the sworn Deputy Sheriff class and promotes the recruit to deputy on completion of the POST Basic Academy. Jail staff work twelve-hour shifts, and every member of the unit bids shift by seniority three times a year.
Where the figure comes from
Checked 21 September 2026. County of Tuolumne, Job Classification Salary Listing, run 30 July 2026 — "D006 DEPUTY SHERIFF DSA 105 01/15/2023 33.8446 70,396.8512" at Step 1, the County printing the hourly and the annual side by side. — open the source document
$70,396.85 is the County's OWN annual figure for job code D006 Deputy Sheriff at Step 1, printed beside the hourly rate of $33.8446; no arithmetic has been applied to it. THE RATE IS DATED 15 JANUARY 2023 AND THAT IS NOT STALENESS IN THE LISTING - IT IS THE DATE THE RATE LAST MOVED, and it is corroborated by a second County document: Attachment "B", Base Salary Ranges, to the FY 2025-26 Deputy Sheriff's Association memorandum of understanding carries the identical row, "D006 DEPUTY SHERIFF DSA HOURLY 105 01/15/2023 33.8446". Other classes on the same listing carry 2026 effective dates, so the listing is maintained and Deputy Sheriff simply has not moved. THE RECRUIT IS A SEPARATE JOB CODE AND IS NOT THE FIGURE: "D008 DEPUTY SHERIFF RECRUIT DSA 107 01/15/2023 30.7679 63,997.1280". THE MOU SETTLES THE GATE IN TERMS, AND IT IS THE DAYTON SHAPE - THE STEP LANDS ON GRADUATION: an applicant who has already completed the POST Basic Academy or STC Core Academy "shall be hired as a Deputy Sheriff", one sent to the academy by the Department "shall be hired as a Deputy Sheriff Recruit", and "Upon successful completion of the POST Basic Academy, a Deputy Sheriff Recruit shall be promoted to a Deputy Sheriff". The MOU also fixes the entry step: "New employees shall be hired at the 'A' step of the established base salary range". No prior sworn service is required at any point, so Step 1 of D006 is the day-one rate. THE JAIL IS A DIFFERENT CLASS AND IS EXCLUDED: "D012 JAIL DEPUTY SHERIFF DSA 111 01/15/2023 27.6820 57,578.4768" is corrections, not patrol. Also excluded: the four steps above, topping out at $85,567.81, the investigations assignment differentials of 5 and 10 ranges, and the grant-funded and relief variants of the same class, which pay the identical rate.
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 Tuolumne 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.
| 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. Tuolumne County starts at $70,397, so $6,832 above the county middle.
How it ranks
Common questions
How much does a Tuolumne County Sheriff's Office officer make?
Tuolumne County Sheriff's Office starts a new officer on $70,397 a year, about $33.84 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 County of Tuolumne, Job Classification Salary Listing, run 30 July 2026 — "D006 DEPUTY SHERIFF DSA 105 01/15/2023 33.8446 70,396.8512" at Step 1, the County printing the hourly and the annual side by side..
Is that good pay for a police officer in California?
It ranks #258 of 278 agencies we have verified in California — 20 pay less, 257 pay more in the state — and #916 of 2,288 nationally. Against the national median it is $3,712 above, and against other county agencies $6,837 above.
Compare with another department
Put Tuolumne County Sheriff's Office 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 Tuolumne | National |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Santa Clara Police Department | Municipal | 141 | $163,619 | +$93,222 | #1 |
| 2 | Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety | Municipal | 227 | $149,443 | +$79,046 | #2 |
| 3 | Redwood City Police Department | Municipal | 83 | $147,942 | +$77,545 | #3 |
| 4 | San Jose Police Department | Municipal | 1,065 | $144,003 | +$73,606 | #4 |
| 5 | Mountain View Police Department | Municipal | 90 | $143,096 | +$72,699 | #5 |
| 6 | San Mateo Police Department | Municipal | 111 | $141,024 | +$70,627 | #6 |
| 7 | Los Altos Police Department | Municipal | 31 | $139,740 | +$69,343 | #7 |
| 8 | Hayward Police Department | Municipal | 171 | $138,965 | +$68,568 | #8 |
| 9 | Milpitas Police Department | Municipal | 84 | $138,261 | +$67,864 | #9 |
| 10 | Los Gatos Police Department | Municipal | 34 | $132,394 | +$61,997 | #10 |
| 11 | Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office | County | 1,071 | $132,263 | +$61,866 | #11 |
| 12 | Menlo Park Police Department | Municipal | 43 | $132,036 | +$61,639 | #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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