birmingham police department (purchase, college, salary)

[lindsaybeth]

Hello!

My husband and I are set to relocate as soon as he gets out of the service, and we're currently testing the waters in various areas to get an idea of where we'd like to live. My husband wants to become a police officer after he leaves the Air Force, and I was wondering if anyone had any information on officer salaries in Birmingham. I've tried to google it, but I haven't found anything useful. The Birmingham PD website didn't list the information.

Thank you so much!

[PhenomenalWoman]

You can google www.salary.com. Then click on the salary wizard.

[cpg35223]

You might want to try the Jefferson County Personnel Board instead. They tend to act as a clearinghouse for most of the police and firedepartments in the community, Birmingham included. Good luck!

[stillamarine]

I start the Birmingham PD academy on December 8th. If you husband has no college the starting pay is 35,609. That is the highest of the departments under the personnel board. BPD is in the process of redoing their website, bear with them. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have on the hiring process. I applied in June, took the written in July and got my final job offer a week ago. So its a pretty quick process as they are hiring a ton of officers right now.

[lindsaybeth]

stillamarine- thanks for the info! My husband has a BA plus military experience, so hopefully that will count for something. Is $35,609 recruit/academy pay? Does it go up after the academy? And is the academy residential? Lol my husband is sitting next to me firing off questions, hope you don't mind . He gets out of the Air Force in June 2010...do you know anything about whether or not they will be hiring that far out? We're relocating from NJ, so we're trying to get as much info as possible before we make a decision on where we want to move.

Thanks again!

[stillamarine]

Lindsaybeth's hubby,

35609 is the base pay upon hire. With a BA i believe...I repeat believe he gets an additional 6 or 8% for his BA. I have been told that the first raise comes around the 6 month mark or shortly after you get out of the academy. Plus if he hasn't used it up yet (and if he's active duty he better not have!) he can utilize his GI Bill during the academy. That's an additional $1321 a month. I believe you can utilize the apprenticeship portion during FTO but I'm awhile from that!

The academy is not residential. It runs Monday through Friday 0745-1645. There are a few night and saturday evolutions but not many. You get full pay during it and also benefits start shortly after the academy starts (we are told ours will start Jan 1). You are issued most everything you need except boots/running shoes/tshirts/pt gear (which you must purchase from them).

As for applying while your out of state, I'm not sure how easy that would be. I mean you could apply online, that's easy. But you have to be here for every step of the process and I'm not aware of them having it set up to do that for out of state applicants. They do the written test every month. It took my about almost 3 months to hear anything else after that, and then I had something every week or every other week until I got hired.

Call Sgt Smith or Officer Smith (not related lol) at the Hiring unit. Sgt Smith is the supervisor, Ofc Smith was my investigator and was a heap of help. Ask them the best way to go about it. Their number is (205) 254-1712

BPD has had it's rough times but it is a large dept with lots of opportunities and a good chief now. I'm happy with my decision.

As for Birmingham, my Fiancee and I love it here and are excited about raising our 2 kids here. She is an RN at a hospital on the southside.

If you want to shoot me an email feel free at tim.gardiner@gmail.com and I'll answer best I can.