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Zionsville 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.
Zionsville Police Department starts at $49,370 a year — about $23.74 an hour on a 2,080-hour year, before overtime. That is $17,315 below the median of the 2,288 agencies on this list, and $18,770 below the median for municipal agencies.
Cost of livingPrices in Indiana run about 7% below the national average, so this goes about as far as $52,899 would somewhere at average prices — $3,529 more than the headline figure. Most of that is rent, at 74 against a national average of 100, where goods are 96. 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 isZionsville Police Department reported 44 sworn officers and 2 civilian staff to the FBI for 2025. That is 1.3 officers per 1,000 residents, over a population of 33,770.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 Zionsville says about itself
It is the mission of the Zionsville Police Department to safeguard lives and property, to preserve the dignity of the individuals that we serve, to protect the rights of the citizens and visitors and to gain public compliance of laws and ordinances to insure a safe, secure environment while at all times conducting ourselves with the highest ethical standards to maintain public confidence.
What Zionsville does
The Zionsville Police Department serves the town of Zionsville, Indiana, in Boone County north-west of Indianapolis, from 1075 Parkway Drive. The Department states that it currently employs 35 full-time sworn police officers. Its published pay ladder is keyed to length of service - Probationary Officer under one year, Patrolman I at one to two years with the Department, Patrolman II at two or more - and officers receive an $800 annual clothing allowance and a Town-funded PERF 77 retirement with eligibility at twenty years.
Where the figure comes from
Checked 20 September 2026. Town of Zionsville, Police Recruiting: "Probationary Officer: (<1 Year Experience) - $49,369.65" — open the source document
$49,369.65 is the Town's own annual figure and no arithmetic has been applied to it. THE ENTRY TEST IS SETTLED BY THE TOWN'S OWN BRACKET: the class is published as 'Probationary Officer: (<1 Year Experience)', defined by having LESS THAN ONE YEAR OF EXPERIENCE, and the classes above it are defined the same way - Patrolman I at one to two years of experience at ZPD, $54,855.17, and Patrolman II at two or more years, $63,311.20. The ladder is keyed to length of service, not to academy status, so there is no separate academy wage being passed over and no post-academy step before the one-year mark. Trainee class: NOT PRICED. Excluded from the figure: the $800 annual clothing allowance, 80 hours of paid time off, and the Town-funded PERF 77 retirement with twenty-year eligibility. NOTED FROM THE SAME PAGE: the Department says it is NOT currently accepting applications and takes pre-applications only, which does not affect the published rate. THE FIGURE CARRIES NO EFFECTIVE DATE. NEXT DOCUMENT: the Town of Zionsville salary ordinance, which Indiana towns adopt annually and which would date the ladder.
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 Zionsville 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. Zionsville starts at $49,370, so $18,770 below the municipal middle.
How it ranks
Common questions
How much does a Zionsville Police Department officer make?
Zionsville Police Department starts a new officer on $49,370 a year, about $23.74 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 Zionsville, Police Recruiting: "Probationary Officer: (<1 Year Experience) - $49,369.65".
Is that good pay for a police officer in Indiana?
It ranks #45 of 46 agencies we have verified in Indiana — 1 pay less, 44 pay more in the state — and #2,107 of 2,288 nationally. Against the national median it is $17,315 below, and against other municipal agencies $18,770 below.
Compare with another department
Put Zionsville 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 IN
| # | Agency | Level | Sworn # | Entry pay | Vs Zionsville | National |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bloomington Police Department | Municipal | 95 | $81,234 | +$31,864 | #452 |
| 2 | South Bend Police Department | Municipal | 246 | $80,240 | +$30,870 | #488 |
| 3 | MSD Wayne Township School Police Department | Special jurisdiction | — | $77,700 | +$28,330 | #566 |
| 4 | Columbus Police Department | Municipal | 88 | $74,984 | +$25,614 | #679 |
| 5 | Fishers Police Department | Municipal | 124 | $74,560 | +$25,190 | #695 |
| 6 | Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department | Municipal | — | $74,459 | +$25,089 | #701 |
| 7 | Fort Wayne Police Department | Municipal | 503 | $73,449 | +$24,079 | #740 |
| 8 | Lafayette Police Department | Municipal | 142 | $72,539 | +$23,169 | #787 |
| 9 | West Lafayette Police Department | Municipal | 47 | $72,391 | +$23,021 | #792 |
| 10 | Purdue University Police Department | Special jurisdiction | — | $72,137 | +$22,767 | #804 |
| 11 | Carmel Police Department | Municipal | 147 | $72,000 | +$22,630 | #813 |
| 12 | Indiana State Police | State | 1,171 | $70,000 | +$20,630 | #938 |
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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