Well Im a CSO in Los Angeles at the University of Southern California It seems to me that you are over under paid for the amount of work that you are doing. As a cso 1 im at 19.60 an hour, and beleive me, the work is not as intense, As a cso II I beleive the starting pay is around $42,000.00 a year and goes up to about $47,000.00 a year after that you can move up to a cso III, Im not sure what the pay is like at that level, benefits , in my opinion, are excellent !!The only down side that I deslike is that we are on 24 hour rotation. there are about 70 cso's in our dept. Hopefully you can convince, your Dept. to give you a raise, otherwise I would suggest you start looking elsewhere.

Hi Michelle, I am a CSO in Ga. I would be happy with the salary that you are getting. The police dept. that I work for is only paying us CSO's $10.00/hr. and we don't even get to do a whole lot b/c they are "scared we might get hurt." If I were you I would be happy with what you are doing and the salary you are getting.
Just a little Thought.

Hi. Retired LA Sheriff Detective. Got bored and took a CSO job with the Redlands Police Dept. in CA.
We top out at $18.88 and hour and take reports with no susp. contact and lift prints, collect DNA evidence, crime scene photos, do crime scene sketches, etc. We take state POST classes in forensics and are certified Crime Scene Techs. Full city paid health and retirement plans. Not bad. Extra 5% for working nights. Nice on top of the retirement. Hi to the Bellflower CSO as you work for my old outfit, LASD.