Police officers in Oregon earned salaries higher than the national average and, in many cases, higher than median wages paid to law enforcement officers working in several East Coast cities like Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.
There were 4,910 police and sheriff's patrol officers working in Oregon in 2013, earning a mean annual salary of $63,650,
according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That comes out to a mean hourly wage of $30.60 an hour.
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First-line supervisors of police and detectives in Oregon earned $89,700, the BLS noted.
Nationwide, the average police officer salary earns
$47,921 per year, according to Payscale.com.
In Portland, one of Oregon's largest cities, the median
police officer salary was $54,379, Salary.com said.
Broken down, the entry-level salary at the Portland Police Bureau was $49,338 while those with five years experience earned $80,829
annually, according to the police website.
As with most states, police officer salaries vary from city to city. In Medford, Oregon, beginning patrol officers are paid a range of $51,738 to $68,654 per year,
according to the department website.
The higher level of police pay in Oregon forces smaller communities to bump up pay to compete with other cities.
The East Oregonian reported in August 2015 that it was increasing police officer pay to "recruit and retain officers."
As police officers in Oregon are promoted to other positions, such as detectives, they receive increases in
pay that can be significant. According to the BLS, Oregon detectives and police investigators receive a median salary of $68,730. Supervisors receive a median salary of $84,730.
Nationwide, there were an estimated more than 12,000 police departments with a total of 477,000 sworn officers with general arrest powers working in all 50
states in 2013, the BLS reported.
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