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Waukesha 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.
Waukesha Police Department starts at $72,566 a year — about $34.89 an hour on a 2,080-hour year, before overtime. That is $5,882 above the median of the 2,288 agencies on this list, and $4,426 above the median for municipal agencies.
Cost of livingPrices in Wisconsin run about 6% below the national average, so this goes about as far as $77,120 would somewhere at average prices — $4,554 more than the headline figure. Most of that is rent, at 79 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 isWaukesha Police Department reported 125 sworn officers and 29 civilian staff to the FBI for 2025. That is 1.8 officers per 1,000 residents, over a population of 71,542.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 Waukesha says about itself
The Police Department responsible for prevention and detection of criminal activity with three service divisions of Patrol, Special Services and Investigation.
What Waukesha does
The Waukesha Police Department serves the city of Waukesha, Wisconsin, west of Milwaukee, and is organised in three service divisions - Patrol, Special Services and Investigation. It files its own officer postings on the Wisconsin Department of Justice's law enforcement employment portal, publishing a salary range for Police Officer rather than a single step. The City describes the Department as responsible for the prevention and detection of criminal activity.
Where the figure comes from
Checked 21 September 2026. Wisconsin Department of Justice, WILENET employment opportunity posted by the City of Waukesha Police Department: "Salary Minimum $72,566.42 - Salary Maximum $102,708.94 per Year". — open the source document
$72,566.42 is the stated MINIMUM of the Department's own published salary range for Police Officer, carried on the Wisconsin Department of Justice's law enforcement employment portal where the employing agency files its own posting, and no arithmetic has been applied to it. The $102,708.94 top of the range is a ceiling and is not the figure. WAUKESHA PRICES NO CADET CLASS IN THIS POSTING: no academy, recruit or pre-service rate appears beside it, so there is no lower training rate to reject. THE WEAKNESS IS NAMED AND NOT HIDDEN: this is a state-portal posting filed by the employer, not the City's own adopted compensation plan, and the range is marked "Dependent On Qualifications", which is the DOE signal that points at a wage scale. THE FIGURE CARRIES NO EFFECTIVE DATE. NEXT DOCUMENT: the City of Waukesha adopted compensation plan or the police labor agreement, either of which would date this figure and supply earlier points.
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 Waukesha 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. Waukesha starts at $72,566, so $4,426 above the municipal middle.
How it ranks
Common questions
How much does a Waukesha Police Department officer make?
Waukesha Police Department starts a new officer on $72,566 a year, about $34.89 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 Wisconsin Department of Justice, WILENET employment opportunity posted by the City of Waukesha Police Department: "Salary Minimum $72,566.42 - Salary Maximum $102,708.94 per Year"..
Is that good pay for a police officer in Wisconsin?
It ranks #16 of 81 agencies we have verified in Wisconsin — 65 pay less, 15 pay more in the state — and #786 of 2,288 nationally. Against the national median it is $5,882 above, and against other municipal agencies $4,426 above.
Compare with another department
Put Waukesha 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 WI
| # | Agency | Level | Sworn # | Entry pay | Vs Waukesha | National |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Menomonee Falls Police Department | Municipal | 59 | $82,618 | +$10,051 | #414 |
| 2 | Fitchburg Police Department | Municipal | 50 | $78,790 | +$6,224 | #527 |
| 3 | Brookfield Police Department | Municipal | 80 | $78,666 | +$6,099 | #533 |
| 4 | Cedarburg Police Department | Municipal | 24 | $77,561 | +$4,995 | #571 |
| 5 | Stoughton Police Department | Municipal | 23 | $76,378 | +$3,811 | #607 |
| 6 | Waukesha County Sheriff's Office | County | 158 | $76,128 | +$3,562 | #614 |
| 7 | River Falls Police Department | Municipal | 27 | $75,525 | +$2,958 | #647 |
| 8 | Wisconsin State Patrol | State | 445 | $75,462 | +$2,896 | #650 |
| 9 | Grafton Police Department | Municipal | 22 | $75,102 | +$2,536 | #672 |
| 10 | Dodge County Sheriff's Office | County | 64 | $75,088 | +$2,522 | #673 |
| 11 | St. Croix County Sheriff's Office | County | 98 | $74,695 | +$2,129 | #688 |
| 12 | Kenosha Police Department | Municipal | 231 | $74,640 | +$2,074 | #692 |
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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