Home › Police pay › Georgia › Woodstock Police Department
Woodstock 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.
Woodstock Police Department starts at $54,782 a year — about $26.34 an hour on a 2,080-hour year, before overtime. That is $11,903 below the median of the 2,288 agencies on this list, and $13,358 below the median for municipal agencies.
Cost of livingPrices in Georgia run about 4% below the national average, so this goes about as far as $56,891 would somewhere at average prices — $2,109 more than the headline figure. Most of that is rent, at 89 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 isWoodstock Police Department reported 56 sworn officers and 7 civilian staff to the FBI for 2025. That is 1.4 officers per 1,000 residents, over a population of 40,492.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 Woodstock says about itself
The City of Woodstock Police Department proudly serves the largest municipality in Cherokee County.
What Woodstock does
The Woodstock Police Department is the municipal force for the City of Woodstock, the largest city in Cherokee County, Georgia. The City says it covers more than 12 square miles, over 35,000 residents and more than 2,000 businesses, plus over 60 miles of bicycle and hiking trails, and that the department is nationally accredited through CALEA and certified by the State of Georgia.
Where the figure comes from
Checked 23 September 2026. City of Woodstock, WPD Career Center: "Starting base salary $54,782 annually for certified officers - Lateral transfer officers may make up to $66,000 starting (depending on years of service and certifications)". — open the source document
$54,782 is printed as an annual BASE salary for certified officers and needs no conversion. THE $66,000 IS A LATERAL CEILING, NOT A FIGURE - it depends on years of service, and a ceiling is never published here. The page says there is "Great starting pay for both certified and non-certified" but prints no non-certified number; non-certified hires go through a departmental orientation and then the regional basic mandate academy, while POST-certified hires "enter directly into the Police Training Program". So $54,782 is the rate for a certified officer with no prior service. No effective date is printed. Excluded: overtime, the VA on-the-job training benefit, and benefits.
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 Woodstock 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. Woodstock starts at $54,782, so $13,358 below the municipal middle.
How it ranks
Common questions
How much does a Woodstock Police Department officer make?
Woodstock Police Department starts a new officer on $54,782 a year, about $26.34 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 Woodstock, WPD Career Center: "Starting base salary $54,782 annually for certified officers - Lateral transfer officers may make up to $66,000 starting (depending on years of service and certifications)"..
Is that good pay for a police officer in Georgia?
It ranks #47 of 80 agencies we have verified in Georgia — 33 pay less, 46 pay more in the state — and #1,871 of 2,288 nationally. Against the national median it is $11,903 below, and against other municipal agencies $13,358 below.
Compare with another department
Put Woodstock 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 GA
| # | Agency | Level | Sworn # | Entry pay | Vs Woodstock | National |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chamblee Police Department | Municipal | 68 | $73,733 | +$18,951 | #729 |
| 2 | Sandy Springs Police Department | Municipal | 149 | $71,686 | +$16,904 | #836 |
| 3 | Georgia Bureau of Investigation | State | 338 | $64,977 | +$10,195 | #1,265 |
| 4 | Duluth Police Department | Municipal | 57 | $64,755 | +$9,973 | #1,279 |
| 5 | Garden City Police Department | Municipal | 35 | $64,072 | +$9,290 | #1,314 |
| 6 | Georgia State Patrol | State | — | $63,684 | +$8,902 | #1,336 |
| 7 | South Fulton Police Department | Municipal | 213 | $63,440 | +$8,658 | #1,354 |
| 8 | Hall County Sheriff's Office | County | 283 | $63,365 | +$8,583 | #1,359 |
| 9 | Roswell Police Department | Municipal | 154 | $62,462 | +$7,680 | #1,413 |
| 10 | Dunwoody Police Department | Municipal | 66 | $62,301 | +$7,519 | #1,428 |
| 11 | Savannah Police Department | Municipal | 425 | $61,989 | +$7,207 | #1,450 |
| 12 | Alpharetta Police Department | Municipal | 105 | $61,100 | +$6,318 | #1,495 |
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.
Scan to install
