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Wellesley 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.
Wellesley Police Department starts at $62,237 a year — about $29.92 an hour on a 2,080-hour year, before overtime. That is $4,448 below the median of the 2,288 agencies on this list, and $5,903 below the median for municipal agencies.
Cost of livingPrices in Massachusetts run about 6% above the national average, so this is worth roughly $58,849 somewhere at average prices — $3,388 less than the headline figure. Most of that is utilities, at 152 against a national average of 100, where goods are 99. 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 isWellesley Police Department reported 44 sworn officers and 11 civilian staff to the FBI for 2025. That is 1.4 officers per 1,000 residents, over a population of 31,811.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 Wellesley says about itself
The Mission of the Wellesley Police Department is to promote and maintain a partnership with the citizens of Wellesley.
What Wellesley does
The Wellesley Police Department is a state-accredited full-service agency responsible for law enforcement in the Town of Wellesley, providing neighbourhood and business policing and the protection of life and property through uniformed and plainclothes officers on patrol and in investigation. Alongside patrol it runs a Crisis Intervention Team, school resource officers, animal control, and domestic violence, elder affairs, housing authority and community service dog officers, those last carried by patrol officers on top of their primary duties. It was a civil service department until 1 July 2010; officers hired after that date are non-civil-service
Wellesley’s rotation, in BlueShifts
Wellesley publishes the roster on its own police employment page: officers work a standard five day on, three day off rotating schedule, with split schedules of four on and four off also available.
The rotation template screen — enter the cycle and the start date, and you are done.
DayNight24 hrsOff
Every month, already filled in — no typing, however far ahead you look.
September 2026
A 5-on, 3-off cycle runs on an eight-day clock, so it never lines up with the week and your days off walk forward through it. BlueShifts builds the cycle once and fills in every month ahead, which is the only way to see where a weekend actually falls.
Where the figure comes from
Checked 6 September 2026. Town of Wellesley official Join the Wellesley Police / Employment page — open the source document
Town's own police employment page, read 6 September 2026: starting salary range $62,237 to $81,531.32 dependent on applicable college education, with a maximum range of $77,769 to $100,131. The published figure is the bottom of the entry range, the rate for a recruit with no college credit. The Department states it is actively seeking ENTRY LEVEL officers and enrols them in a six-month Municipal Police Training Committee academy after a conditional offer, so neither certification nor prior service is required; officers must hold at least an associate degree within five years of hire. A three-month field training programme and a one-year probation follow the academy
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.
BlueShifts. Plan Your Year. Own Your Time.
The shift calendar built for your rotation, off-duty work, and life on and off the clock.
Save your shift schedule once and BlueShifts fills the rest of the year in.
How this level compares
Where Wellesley 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. Wellesley starts at $62,237, so $5,903 below the municipal middle.
How it ranks
Common questions
How much does a Wellesley Police Department officer make?
Wellesley Police Department starts a new officer on $62,237 a year, about $29.92 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 Town of Wellesley official Join the Wellesley Police / Employment page.
Is that good pay for a police officer in Massachusetts?
It ranks #14 of 19 agencies we have verified in Massachusetts — 5 pay less, 13 pay more in the state — and #1,434 of 2,288 nationally. Against the national median it is $4,448 below, and against other municipal agencies $5,903 below.
What shifts do Wellesley Police Department officers work?
Wellesley publishes the roster on its own police employment page: officers work a standard five day on, three day off rotating schedule, with split schedules of four on and four off also available. That is the agency's own published wording; the pattern is drawn on this page.
Compare with another department
Put Wellesley 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 MA
| # | Agency | Level | Sworn # | Entry pay | Vs Wellesley | National |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Everett Police Department | Municipal | 120 | $95,568 | +$33,331 | #178 |
| 2 | Nantucket Police Department | Municipal | 40 | $92,144 | +$29,907 | #225 |
| 3 | Massachusetts State Police | State | 2,565 | $80,213 | +$17,976 | #491 |
| 4 | Tufts University Police Department | Special jurisdiction | 52 | $75,962 | +$13,725 | #632 |
| 5 | Barnstable Police Department | Municipal | 109 | $75,400 | +$13,163 | #655 |
| 6 | Boston Police Department | Municipal | 2,172 | $71,861 | +$9,624 | #822 |
| 7 | Plymouth Police Department | Municipal | 108 | $67,927 | +$5,690 | #1,062 |
| 8 | West Stockbridge Police Department | Municipal | — | $66,797 | +$4,560 | #1,133 |
| 9 | Haverhill Police Department | Municipal | 111 | $66,652 | +$4,415 | #1,146 |
| 10 | Rowley Police Department | Municipal | 10 | $66,397 | +$4,160 | #1,168 |
| 11 | Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs — Environmental Police | State | — | $65,447 | +$3,210 | #1,222 |
| 12 | Brockton Police Department | Municipal | 179 | $63,971 | +$1,734 | #1,321 |
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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