Our department is a Department of Public Safety which means that we are dual certified as Police Officers and Firefighters. Our starting pay is 45k with a top pay of a little over 60k. Promote a couple of times and you can look at about 85-90k. With overtime, as a regular officer you can look at 75-80k. This is Texas and cost of living isn't so bad. Some of the other pay quotes seem to be from places like California where the cost of a 1500 sq ft home might cost you 300k. All things are relative. I was a motor jock for a while and you really have to like being a cop to be happy at it. Can't really be in between. Tons of paperwork and dealing with the REAL a##holes of this world.

Fireman