By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer
This is part of our continued series on Washington public safety employee wages. In this issue we report on wage rankings for 911 dispatchers and police records clerks.
In this article we a brief discussion of the wage rankings but for the detailed data, you’ll want to explore our Premium Website. If you’re not currently a Premium Website subscriber, you can review our services at Cline and Casillas Premium Information Services and contact Donna Steinmetz at Cline and Casillas and she’ll explain how you can become one. For current premium subscribers below are links to some of the additional available Dispatcher and Records Clerk Wage Rank reports:
Dispatcher 5 Year No Degree 2015 Ranking
Dispatcher 25 Year BA 2015 Ranking
This year, Spokane County Dispatchers, unlike their police officers, rank high, coming in 3rd place at 5 year no degree and first place at 25 year BA. South Sound, formerly LESA, is no longer in the top ranked dispatch position, but it is still in the top 10. Valley Com, which in prior years had been below LESA, is now ranked 1st at 5 year no degree and 3rd at the 25 year BA level. Port of Seattle does not make the top 10 at the 5 year no degree wage but jumps back in at 2nd position for the 25 year BA wage. NORCOM is now a major player in the wage ranking coming in 2nd at 5 year no degree and 4th at 25 year BA. Zillah dispatchers bottom out the list at $3099 per month with the 57th ranked dispatcher wage, just behind Ferry County.
The top 10 dispatcher wages at the 5 year level is listed below.
|
5 Year No Degree Rank 2015 |
Jurisdictions |
| 1 | Valley Comm |
| 2 | NORCOM |
| 3 | Spokane |
| 4 | Seattle |
| 5 | Puyallup |
| 6 | Port of Seattle |
| 7 | South Sound 911 |
| 8 | King County |
| 9 | SNOPAC |
| 10 |
SNOCOM |
The Records Clerk data continues to reveal some unusual rankings. Medina is not on the high end of population and yet it has risen from its already high ranking to be the highest records clerk wage on our list. For the 25 year BA wage, Renton, historically ranked 1st, is now ranked 2nd. Renton slipped to be ranked 6th at the 5 year no degree level. Other smaller cities that continue to rank high on this list are Fife and Monroe. South Sound 911, formerly LESA, has records clerks that are also in the top 10 of both wage survey lists. Mercer Island, Everett, Lake Forest Park, Kirkland, and Tukwila are the larger cities that made the top 10 in our ranking at the 25 year BA level.
At the 25 year BA wage, Seattle Records Clerks actually are ranked a surprising 50th place, between Port Orchard and Ephrata, out of the 133 records clerk positions surveyed. And King County continues, as in past years, to rank lower than what might be predicted, at 38th between Mukilteo and Ocean Shores. Spokane County records clerks are ranked second to last at 132nd. Cities with the top 10 ranked 5 year no degree wages are listed in the table below.
| 5 Year No Degree Rank 2015 | Jurisdictions |
| 1 | Medina |
| 2 | Monroe |
| 3 | South Sound 911 |
| 4 | Fife |
| 5 | Mercer Island |
| 6 | Renton |
| 7 | Everett |
| 8 | Bainbridge Island |
| 9 | Issaquah |
| 10 | Kirkland |
In some future articles in this series, we’ll delve into factors which appear to contribute to rankings, including geographic location, population, and assessed valuation. In those articles we reveal how geography, size, and tax base are highly predictive of wage rankings, but in the case of Seattle and King County records clerks, for example, that does not always prove to be the sole explanation. In the next article in this series, we’ll turn to a discussion about the extent to which Population is associated with wage rankings.
