Pay

I have worked for three years with a Pinellas County agency. I am planning on moving to the Brandon and am looking to apply to USFPD and go back to school for a degree. I know the pay wont be the same but does USFPD pay more starting for certified with a few years? or is it the same across the board? The last question I have is do you have a K-9 division?

If you will rant about your agency being bad or pay being bad, please save your comments. Thanks

Same across the board I believe. No K-9 yet. I say yet, because with our new Chief, many changes have occurred, and many more are expected.

The history of Officers coming from large departments is not good. I would strongly suggest you do your homework on the department before you apply. Go on a ride along, and see if it is for you. I only say this because, this agency is'nt for everyone. We currently do not have a k-9 division, but there will be in the next 2-4 years. They "may" consider your experience as far as pay, but there is no guarentees.

All new officers hired by the Department start at the same salary. There is no pay difference for experience. If that was the case the two 20 year guys from other agencies would be making alot more money.

There may be a step plan and a past experience type of pay scale but for now its all the same for all new hires.

Things are changing slowly, see what happens

Thank you for responding so quickly and in the manner that you did. I will be looking into the agency further and come out for a ride-a-long. If one of you would be so kind as to provide me a contact to set up the ride I would appreciate it.

Thanks again
Stay Safe.

K-9'? Maybe a German Shepherd? That would bring back some good memories of the college campus scene from the late 60's/early 70's. The scruffy dog that sniffs for drugs? Aren't there already officers that can smell a burning marijuana roach a mile away? Though, Scruffy could walk through the dorms every night and get plenty of arrest for sure. Wonder how that would pan out?

A bomb sniffing scruffy? Wouldn't get much real experience, but a lot of mock practice. The way police grant money goes, you can buy all the BS equipment you need, and most of it will collect dust, on the college campus scene. It's a shame they'll give you all the money you need to buy all the equipment you need, but they won't put it towards what officers could really use; cold hard cash salary raises!

"The history of Officers coming from large departments is not good. I would strongly suggest you do your homework on the department before you apply. Go on a ride along, and see if it is for you. I only say this because, this agency is'nt for everyone. We currently do not have a k-9 division, but there will be in the next 2-4 years. They "may" consider your experience as far as pay, but there is no guarentees" -Quote

As far as I know they don't pay for experience, and they probably won't. The experienced officer that applies here won't get excited over the big arrest that occur here; Minors in possession of alcohol or Misdameanor Marijuana arrest.

The experienced officer was too busy responding to other calls for service; suicides, domestics, juvenile problems in the home/run a ways, robberies, and burglaries. This transition will cause him the most problems, from experiencing what he normally did on a day to day basis, to dealing with the things the University PD see as important.

He has to first get started with the "Information" report before he can get use to enforcement of the underagae alcohol arrest and misdameanor marijuana arrest. With officer acclimation of what is required/wanted it will happen. It is a change of mind and priorities that needs to occur to make it at the UP level. Some experienced officer will make it, some will not.

He/She!

It is spelled "MISDEMEANOR" .....AND YOU CALL YOURSELF A UNIVERSITY COP !!!

Anyone else want to work full time for the Sundome? At least I make bank working for them!!!!!!!!!

I'm going to go back to listening to the Jeopardy theme song while I think about the 5 step email.........

K-9'? Maybe a German Shepherd? That would bring back some good memories of the college campus scene from the late 60's/early 70's. The scruffy dog that sniffs for drugs? Aren't there already officers that can smell a burning marijuana roach a mile away? Though, Scruffy could walk through the dorms every night and get plenty of arrest for sure. Wonder how that would pan out?

A bomb sniffing scruffy? Wouldn't get much real experience, but a lot of mock practice. The way police grant money goes, you can buy all the BS equipment you need, and most of it will collect dust, on the college campus scene. It's a shame they'll give you all the money you need to buy all the equipment you need, but they won't put it towards what officers could really use; cold hard cash salary raises! I'm a K-9 Handler for UCF and we use all our dogs all the time. Though they are single purpose now we are going full service as soon as they retire.

History of officers coming from other departments is not good? You have to look at the hiring. The young officers aren't going to stay not matter what. They are just happy to get their first job and want to go on to the county or the city, to do the police work they have seen on COP'S and think they should be doing. You would have to take a survey to find out why the ones that got hired here for their first job and stayed here, actually stayed here...not many.

Officers that come from other agencies, you have two categories; the ones that got pissed off at their other agencies and applied at USF to keep a job going in the police field and don't intend to stay, or the ones that want to finish/continue a good police career at USF. For some reason, they hire the first two. It's simple to me, am I wrong?

They are just happy to get their first job and want to go on to the county or the city, to do the police work they have seen on COP'S and think they should be doing.

You mean real police work? I hate to burst your bubble pal, but real police work isn't RAD, fire alarms at zeta, and checking to make sure call boxes work. There are two types of officers who stay at USF. The first is the officer who has already left a real LE job and wants to either finish out their career at USF or start a second one. The second type of officer to stay at USF is the type who is too scared to do real police work on a regular basis. It's plain and simple. Why ANYONE would stay at a department that has such lousy pay and benefits for any longer than they have to just isn't comprehendable. The only reason is because they would wash out of a real department.

I think that is exactly what was meant. Why any young person would stay at USF and ***** about stuff is beyond me. It is for the older cop, or the cop that realizes that opening doors and responding to fire alarms isn't such a bad job, much better then then all the BS TPD or HCSO officers have to deal with on a daily basis. The work environment is so much better.

University Police will always be needed. There should be some kind of pay raise though...? The retirees get 3% a year no matter what. USF officers working should get at least that if not a little more, the way I see it, to make things fair and keep officers around.

I have a friend at FIU and he tells me they do not do polygraphs or voice stress analyzer which is a big dropping point at most agencies in the application process. So if it is the same up there, I am sure the young guys can get by with there written lies but get caught by one of those test.

What is your starting pay?