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County Council plans to meet Sheriff’s Department staffing request once union negotiations wrap up

While the Pierce County Council did not immediately fund any new positions for the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office in its 2026-2027 budget, that’s only because it can’t yet fund something for which it doesn’t have any solid numbers. And it faced a Dec. 1 deadline to send a budget for the county executive.

The county’s contract with the Pierce County Deputy Sheriff’s Guild dictates budgeting for staffing. The guild and County Executive Ryan Mello have been negotiating a new contract for more than a year. Negotiations have entered interest arbitration.

Without a contract, the council does not know exactly how much it needs to allocate to PCSO to pay existing and new officers.

The council increased sheriff’s department’s funding by about $26 million over the next two years. It plans to amend its budget to match the contract once the union and Mello agree on one.

Deputy shortage

As it stands, 77% of the county’s total budget will go toward public safety. More than 40% of that funding chunk is already going to the PCSO.

A shortage of deputies has been a hot topic, particularly on the Peninsula and elsewhere in unincorporated Pierce County. Many people who attended the council’s November budget meetings expressed anger and frustration about the situation, both in person and in written comment.

During the 2024-2025 budget cycle, the sheriff’s department proposed “staffing reductions of 21.9 full-time equivalent employees.” The reductions eliminated positions that were vacant at the time. The Sheriff’s Office noted it would “request to have positions reinstated if they can be filled.”

The council reduced the positions as asked and allocated that money toward filling support positions within the department. Those included legal assistants and public records officers, as well as an intelligence analyst, again as the PCSD had asked.

This year, at an Oct. 8 budget meeting, the sheriff’s office asked the council to prepare to restore 12 positions and add two patrol sergeants to cover swing shifts on central patrol. The county can’t fill the two sergeant positions or the other 12 positions, Undersheriff Cyndie Fajardo said, until the department resolves its existing staffing issues.

The department’s budget presentation indicates it is “deferring these requests until we can fill our existing vacancies.” Mello has proposed funding the positions using a Public Safety Tax, according to the department’s slideshow.

‘We’ve never filled our positions’

During the meeting, Councilmember Dave Morell noted that “one of the challenges that I see in restoring those 12 deputy positions is, since I’ve been on the council, we’ve never filled our positions. We kind of use vacancy savings to run operations on overtime.”

“So,” he asked Fajardo, “walk me through how you’re going to restore my confidence in your ability to get 12 more positions if we make it eligible under the House Bill 2015 or included in a future budget here.”

Farjado said that restoring those 12 positions is delayed, because the department has trouble attracting and retaining deputies. However, she said, the department is “very excited” about a planned marketing program that it believes will “have a significant impact in getting candidates to look at Pierce County and to come to Pierce County and work here. It is a national endeavor.”

“It’s not going to be just localized to Washington state,” she continued. “It’ll be nationwide to try to entice people to move to our beautiful — now sunny, soon to be not — area. And so, with that in mind, we wanted also the council to be aware that there were 12 positions that were eliminated from the budget and also to keep it on the foresight.”

The department also asked the council to temporarily convert two of its vacant corrections deputy positions — a different kind of officer than, for instance, a patrol officer — to fund a temporary strategic advisor position. The council funded the strategic officer position as asked.

Budget deadline

Several members of the public urged the council to delay approving the budget. However, due to the Dec. 1 deadline, the council could not wait any longer, even without solid sheriff’s office staffing budgeting plans.

The county struggles to retain deputies, and candidates sometimes don’t perceive the job to be attractive.

Councilmember Jani Hitchen acknowledged that a perception exists “that we are somehow short-changing or under-investing in our deputies,” both in stretching deputies thin, work-wise, and in not offering them enough incentives either to come or to stay. The latter problem compounds the former.

However, she said, this comes down to how the county is legally allowed to fund the department.

“We live in a county that has an urban-like, city-like, population-dense centers that are in county spaces. That is unlike almost every other county in the state of Washington,” she said. “We have a city-like population and residents who want city-like services, but we don’t have a way to fund it. We are actually legally not allowed to — by the state of Washington — to do the things that cities do to bring revenue in to fund city-like policing, and so we have to figure out ways to do this.”

Bonuses

The county currently offers a $10,000 hiring incentive for entry-level deputy sheriffs, and a $25,000 hiring incentive for lateral recruits. The department also provides a $12,000 hiring incentive for corrections deputies who choose to become a deputies, as well as a $5,000 referral bonus to any officer who successfully recruits a new sheriff’s deputy or corrections deputy.

The council also unanimously voted on Dec. 2 to approve a one-time, $5,000 retention bonus to every deputy who has worked for the department for at least 90 days. District 1 Councilmember Dave Morell proposed the $1.5 million amendment.

Carl Gordon — a Fox Islander who identified himself as a former firefighter medic for Seattle — said council members are “putting yourselves at risk, because you’re not funding what needs to be funded.”

“These deputies out here are understaffed, underpaid, have no benefits, and you guys are putting them aside and make them go through bargaining for their wages,” Gordon said. “Obviously, you have the money, because you’re talking about funding these pathways for progress for homeless [people], for known criminals. I believe they can be educated and brought back into society but if you don’t fund civil service first you’re going to lose all of it.”

Like other county employees, deputies receive a number of benefits, including a choice of full medical and dental coverage, sick leave and a choice of retirement plan. Pierce County also offers deputies an Employee Assistance Program.

Peninsula residents frustrated

Councilmember Robyn Denson, who represents the Gig Harbor and Key Peninsula area, said she and other council members understand and share residents’ frustrations. Public safety, she said, “is definitely a big deal in my district … those of us that [represent] more unincorporated areas probably hear about it a lot more.”

She noted that “it’s not only the Peninsula Detachment, it’s the Foothills and the Mountain detachments, as well all of our rural detachments that are very low-staffed.”

The Foothills Detachment is located in East Pierce County, in the Bonney Lake area. The Mountain Detachment is significantly larger, serving Southeast Pierce County from 224th St. E. to Mount Rainier. 

Denson also said that officer staffing is a national issue. Pierce County struggles to compete with other counties and cities to retain and attract officers.

“Right now, in the biennial budget … there’s $406 million for our sheriff office,” she said. “It’s extremely expensive and it is our number one priority.  … We understand that has to be done. There’s $25.7 million of an increase [in cost] over the last [biennial budget]. People are expensive. Training is expensive. Equipment and cars and technology — it’s all very expensive. I think the message that I want to share on public safety, especially with the folks from my district and those others that have the similar concerns is we’re not done. We can’t be done, because we don’t have the contract yet.”

Contract negotiations

Denson also addressed public discontent over sheriff’s office funding in her Dec. 1 newsletter. She acknowledged the frustration voiced at the Nov. 25 council meeting, as well as discussions regarding PCSO staffing on social media and in news publications.

Most councilmembers “want to see more deputy positions in our areas,” and she has “been advocating for additional deputies for our Peninsula Detachment for years,” Denson wrote. Yet addressing the problem “isn’t as simple as putting more money into the budget.”

“The county is currently negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement with the Deputy Sheriffs’ Guild. This contract is subject to interest arbitration, and both the county and the guild have agreed to move forward with that process,” she said. “A neutral arbitrator will hear from both sides and then issue a binding decision that sets wages and benefits.”

She explained that the council doesn’t participate in those negotiations and only gets involved after the union approves a contract. The council approves that contract and identifies and allocates funding accordingly.

“For now, the funding included for deputy staffing in our biennial budget serves as a placeholder until a final contract is reached,” she explained. “When we know the new agreed upon wages, we will likely need to adopt a supplemental budget to add the required funds. With that in mind, we reserved resources during budget development in anticipation of potential back pay and future salary increases.”

Looking at more incentives

She said that the county plans to continue to offer current hiring incentives.

“Funding for these incentives is already appropriated through mid-2026, so we can hold off on additional allocations until the contract is settled, and we have a complete financial picture,” Denson continued. “There are many reasons deputies choose to move to other agencies. Compensation and the lack of a finalized contract is certainly one, but it’s not the only factor. As we work through these challenges, we remain committed to good faith bargaining with the Local 1889 Deputy Sheriff’s Independent Guild, and to ensuring Pierce County is a competitive, supportive employer of choice for skilled law enforcement professionals.”