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Law EnforcementCareer Guide

How to Become a Police Officer in Lubbock, Texas

11 min readUpdated 2026-08-22

Lubbock will pay a police cadet $70,000.32 a year, $33.654 an hour, on the city's own FY 2025-2026 Police Pay Schedule. That is grade PNCSP Cadet (Non-Civil Service). The same cell is $2,692.32 biweekly and $5,833.36 a month. PNC(E1) Entry Level I A/B prints the same cell. PCS1 Police Officer Step A is $36.058 an hour, $75,000.64 a year, through Step F $48.334 / $100,534.72. The cadet hire cell is $70,000.32, not a rounded $70,000.

Law enforcement pathway

Police Officer (Probationary Police Officer), job 5405047 / P880-5735 (26B5) still lists a rounded header of $70,000.00 a year, then in the body: STARTING SALARY $33.654 HOURLY / $2,692.32 BIWEEKLY / $70.000.32 ANNUALLY (missing comma; equals $70,000.32). The header biweekly is $2,692.31. The rounded header is $70,000.00. The schedule cell is $70,000.32. Those two figures are not averaged.

The city serves the same PDF under two DocumentCenter IDs, 6268 and 3069 (byte-identical on the 2026-08-21 retrieval); both print PNC(E2) at $70,000.32. DocumentCenter 2607, dated October 3, 2025, prints PNC(E2) at $75,000.64. That is one document against one, not two against one. Cadet and PNC(E1) are $70,000.32 on both, and PCS1 Step A is $75,000.64 on both. PNC(E2) is not the start.

Lubbock Fire Rescue, Lubbock ISD PD, Lubbock International Airport PD, Lubbock County Sheriff, Lubbock CO. Water Dist. No. 1 PD, Lubbock-Cooper ISD PD, and the youth cadet application hire on separate schedules. This page covers Lubbock PD.

The license is TCOLE's. The job is Lubbock PD's. Those are two gates. The Texas sequence is in How to Become a Police Officer in Texas. The license rules are in TCOLE peace officer license requirements. This page is the city's recruiting tree, the FY 2025-2026 Police Pay Schedule, and the NEOGOV cards.

Department listing: Lubbock Police Department. Pay comparison: Texas police salary by department. That salary page still keeps Lubbock out of the N=12 table because that collection is DFW municipal departments plus Texas DPS, not because the pay-schedule cell is missing. City hiring guides in this series: Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington, Irving, Frisco, McKinney, Mesquite, Grand Prairie, Denton. Texas DPS hiring from Training Operations is How to Become a Texas State Trooper. Houston hiring from hpdcareer.com and NEOGOV 5328764 is How to Become a Police Officer in Houston. Brownsville hiring from the June 13, 2025 civil service notice, Employment & Benefits, and the stay-tuned exam page is How to Become a Police Officer in Brownsville. McAllen hiring from the August 21, 2026 civil service notice, Staff Services, and the October 13, 2026 exam packet is How to Become a Police Officer in McAllen. Waco hiring from the FY 2025-2026 Civil Service Police Salary Schedule, NEOGOV 5344313, Employment, Training, and Employment Fitness Test is How to Become a Police Officer in Waco.

What Lubbock PD actually is

City Hall: 1314 Avenue K, Lubbock, TX 79401. Headquarters front desk (806) 775-2816. Non-emergency dispatch (806) 775-2865. Civil Service Director Elizabeth Lara, CivilServiceAdmin@mylubbock.us. Recruiting LPDRecruiting@mylubbock.us. Backgrounds LPDBackgrounds@mylubbock.us. DD-214 honorable-discharge credit: DD214LPD@MYLUBBOCK.US. Lubbock Police Academy: 508 Davis Drive, Lubbock, TX 79416, (806) 775-2964.

Patrol division stations named on the Police Department hub: North Patrol, 5910 Erskine St., (806) 775-3481. South Patrol, 14005 Indiana Ave., (806) 775-3482. East Patrol, 1901 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., (806) 775-3483. Those are three named patrol sites, not a station count.

2025 Annual Report names Chief of Police Seth Herman. The same report prints a vacancy rate for sworn law enforcement officers of approximately 2 percent at year end, and "LPD ended the year at 98% sworn staffing." That is not a sworn roster.

The live apply door

The cadet/probationary exam door is closed. Recruiting still lists the last Lubbock test as Thursday, August 13th, with applications due Friday, August 7th at 5 p.m. That matches 26B5: opened July 10, 2026, closed August 7, 2026, 5:00 p.m. Central. That August 7 close is the last cadet window on this retrieval, not an open door.

Applications for Police Officer - San Angelo Exam, job 5360568 / P880-5735 (26B6) closed Thursday, August 20, 2026, 5:00 p.m. Central. The exam itself is still scheduled for Wednesday, August 26, 2026, 10 a.m. at the Concho Valley Council of Governments, 5430 Link Road, San Angelo, TX 76904. Travel is on you. That is a closed application window, not a Lubbock apply door.

LPD Jobs still lists "Our next test date is Thursday, April 2nd" on the Police Officer (Probationary Police Officer) description. That April line is not the live exam.

The live card on this retrieval is laterals. Lateral Police Officer, job 5097636 / P868-5735 opened January 10, 2026, closes September 30, 2026, 5:00 p.m. Central. Salary on that card: Depends on Qualifications. Apply at governmentjobs.com/careers/lubbock. Watch Recruiting for the next cadet notice.

Minimum requirements

Requirements and the 26B5 / 26B6 packages reprint the same floor.

Age: at least 20 years and 182 days on the day of the entrance examination. 26B5's date-of-birth question says 20 years and 6 months, and "IF YOUR BIRTHDAY IS AFTER FEBRUARY 13, 2006, YOU ARE NOT ELIGIBLE TO TAKE THIS EXAM." The Requirements sentence is the city's rule. TCOLE's own floor is 21, or 18 with an associate's degree, 60 semester hours, or an honorable discharge after two years of active service (37 TAC 217.1(b)(1)(A)). Lubbock's apply door is 20 years and 182 days on exam day. Those are not the same measuring point. Read TCOLE peace officer license requirements.

United States citizen. That is Lubbock PD's hiring rule. TCOLE also licenses a legal permanent resident who is an honorably discharged veteran with two years of service and has applied for citizenship (37 TAC 217.1(b)(17)).

High school diploma or G.E.D. certificate.

Valid driver's license not in jeopardy of suspension. No driver's license suspension within the last 2 years. No more than 3 moving violations within the last 36 months. Current motor vehicle liability insurance. A valid Texas driver's license at appointment. That Texas license is Lubbock PD's hiring rule, not a TCOLE minimum. TCOLE's floor is that you are not prohibited from operating a motor vehicle (37 TAC 217.1(b)(8)).

No dishonorable discharge, or other discharge based on misconduct that bars future military service.

Vision: uncorrected 20/100 or better in each eye, both eyes correctable with eyeglasses to at least 20/20 binocular, or 20/200 or better correctable to at least 20/20 binocular with contact lenses, and the ability to distinguish the basic color groups.

Honorable Discharge Credit: long-form DD-214 (Service 2, Member 4, or Service 7) emailed to DD214LPD@MYLUBBOCK.US. Any discharge other than Honorable is not eligible.

Requirements: not convicted of a Class B misdemeanor or its equivalent within the last 120 months; not convicted of a Class A misdemeanor or any felony; not on probation for a criminal offense above Class C; not under indictment for a felony, Class A, or Class B. TCOLE makes a Class A conviction a lifetime bar and puts the ten-year lookback on Class B only (37 TAC 217.1(b)(4), (b)(6)). Family violence bars on community supervision as well as conviction (217.1(b)(7)). The city's Class A conviction bar matches TCOLE's lifetime floor; the TCOLE family-violence community-supervision bar is the license gate even if Requirements names probation only as above Class C.

Recruits who are not already licensed Texas peace officers reach full Civil Service status after 18 months of probationary service from the date of hire. Recruits who enter the academy already licensed reach that status after 12 months. FAQs: time in the Cadet program does not count toward probationary time. The FAQ clock starts at academy start date.

The test, a 2000-meter row at 40 percent

Written exam first. Hiring Process: applicants must complete a written and physical exam. The study guide is linked from that page (DocumentCenter 5983 / 7699). A passing percent is not printed on Recruiting, Hiring Process, FAQs, or the 26B5 card opened for this page. That gap is not filled from another city.

Physical Ability Test after the written: timed 2000-meter row on a Concept 2. 26B5: this assessment accounts for 40 percent of your total score and is calculated from age, weight, and gender. There is no single passing time. FAQs send you to the Texas DPS Concept 2 calculator and tell you to enter 40 percent in desired results. Hiring Process links the same calculator. Not CPAT. Not a 4-minute damper-5 pass. Not Houston's 300-meter run.

26B5: no applicant shall take an entrance exam more than once for an academy class. Pass the written before the physical.

After that: Personal History Statement, background, board interview, interview with Chief Seth Herman, then a conditional offer, then urinalysis, psychological, medical, and polygraph. FAQs clock the sequence at about four months from test day to academy start, and the academy start must coincide with a two-week pay cycle.

Academy length

Recruiting: immediately after being hired, the recruit attends the Police Academy for a minimum of 28 weeks. Hours Monday through Thursday, 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., with some nighttime training. Classroom plus firearms, defensive tactics, and physical training. Successful completion requires passing the state peace officer licensing exam. Then Field Training.

FAQs compare the academic load to "the equivalent of an associates degree in six months." That is the FAQ's academic comparison. It is not a second week count. Those are not two week counts to average.

After academy graduation, officers enter the fifteen (15) week Field Training Officer Program. FAQs: FTO is typically 15 weeks over four phases. Applicants with previous law enforcement experience may not be required to complete all 15 weeks.

Academy Course Availability is the in-service course list at 508 Davis Drive. On this retrieval it printed "No courses Currently Scheduled." That PDF is not the recruit BPOC calendar.

See What to expect at a Texas police academy.

Laterals

Join LPD as a Lateral Officer is a live page. LPD Jobs says the department is currently accepting applications for Police Officer Reappointment through the Lateral Entry Police Program.

NEOGOV 5097636: minimum of two (2) years of continuous, full-time service as a paid, licensed or certified peace officer in a law enforcement agency, including out-of-state agencies as approved by the Chief of Police. Break in service may not exceed three (3) years from leaving the previous agency to applying at LPD. Eligible candidates are placed on the pay scale according to years of previous law enforcement experience. Experience pay starts the first day of the lateral academy.

Abbreviated academy: six to eight weeks based on experience. Out-of-state officers: LPD will provide the TCOLE conversion at no cost; that may extend the six-to-eight-week academy.

Written-exam conflict, printed not averaged. Recruiting and the police hub: "Lateral officers no longer need to complete a written exam." The laterals page process list still names Entrance Exam (Written & Physical). NEOGOV 5097636: lateral entry applicants must successfully complete each step in the Civil Service hiring process in the same manner as any other applicant. Ask Civil Service which of those three sentences is the live rule before you skip a written date.

Pay and benefits

FY 2025-2026 Police Pay Schedule, retrieved 2026-08-21, same cells on the Recruiting abbreviated table.

PNCSP Cadet: $70,000.32 / $33.65 (table rounds the hourly to two decimals; the PDF is $33.654). PCS1 Police Officer: $75,000.64-$100,534.72. PCS2 Police Corporal: $102,040.64. PCS3 Police Sergeant: $104,083.20-$115,847.68. PCS4 Police Lieutenant: $118,734.72-$131,528.80. PCS5 Police Deputy Chief/Captain: $138,103.68-$153,703.68. PCS6 Police Assistant Chief: $161,395.52-$177,941.92.

Laterals benefits list: take-home vehicle, PTO, 10-hour shift, equipment provided, shift differential up to 5 percent, incentive pay, TMRS Retirement Plan (2:1 match), $1,200 annual clothing allowance, health, dental, vision, and life. That is TMRS, not the Lubbock Fire Pension Fund.

FAQs: Patrol currently runs 10-hour fixed shifts, Day / Evening / Midnight, no rotation, annual Draft Day. Evening shift 3 percent and night shift 5 percent shift differential on irregular hours.

Education incentive conflict, printed not averaged. FAQs: $80 a month for 60 semester hours, $125 a month for a Bachelor's, $175 a month for a Master's in approved course areas. Laterals FAQ: once off probation, $150 a month for a Bachelor's or $175 a month for a Master's or higher, plus certification pay and shift differential. Those two education-incentive tables are not averaged.

Sources, used 2026-08-21 and 2026-08-22

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