By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer
In part 6 of our ongoing wage series, we now turn to the rankings of County Deputy and City Police Officer rankings throughout the State. This series always produces both expected and unexpected information about the relative standing of jurisdictions.
In this article will provide you some discussion of the wage rankings but for the full rankings, you’ll need to explore our Premium Website. If you’re not currently a Premium Website subscriber you can review our services Cline and Associates Premium Information Services and contact Carly Alcombrack at Cline and Associates and she’ll explain how you can become one: CAlcombrack@clinelawfirm.com. For current premium subscribers below are links to some of the additional available Police and Deputy Wage Rank reports:
Police Officer 5 Year No Degree 2021 Ranking
Police Officer 25 Year BA 2021 Ranking
Deputy Sheriff 5 Year No Degree 2021 Ranking
Deputy Sheriff 25 Year BA 2021 Ranking
For County Deputies, King County remains at number 1 at the 5 year and 25 Year BA level. Kitsap County stands out at number 3, almost $170 over 4th ranked Snohomish County. Further down the list, at the 5-year level Benton and Whatcom are only $20 apart.
Some small counties have crept up the list. San Juan County ranks 8th on the 5-year list and has maintained a ranking of 5th on the 25-year BA pay level. Rounding out the 5-year rank, Spokane County is number 10 at the 5 Year level. At the 25 Year BA level Spokane County is 13th. Chelan County has substantial longevity and BA premium that lifts it from 18th on the 5-year list to 11th on the 25 year BA list.
Below is a listing of the top 10 ranked 5-year Deputy Sheriff wages for Counties. For the full listing including the 5 year and 25 Year BA ranking of all 39 counties, wages, and wage date see the Cline and Associates premium website.
A review of the city police officer rankings also shows many of the same both expected and unexpected results.
Seattle tops both the 5 year no degree and the 25 Year BA list. Some previous high paid jurisdictions like Kent and Vancouver now lag far behind their historic rankings. Spokane is currently 37th with a recent contract settlement. This is an improvement from its recent 85th place with outdated 2016 wage. However this city is still low for its rank as the 2nd largest city in the State. While 108th populated city Black Diamond is ranked 30th for 5 year no degree wage. It drops to 50th at the 25 Year BA level. This indicates how factors such as Assessed Valuation per capita and not solely population play into wage settlements. Below is a list of the top 10 of 133 Washington cities ranked by their 5 year no degree wage. (Note that the Everett base wage number can be a bit misleading because it reflects an additional 112 hours per year, which means their actual hourly wage is over 5% lower.) Other that this, this top 10 list is heavily oriented to King County.
For the specific wage numbers, please review the Charts available on our Premium Website. We report the wages for purposes of this summary survey at two levels, 5 year No Degree and 25 Year BA and indicated the wage and last contract year that wage is reported from.
We have performed a more in-depth analysis of these results and compared them to important contributing factors such as Population and Tax Base. In some of the articles ahead in this series, we’ll undertake a detailed review of how those factors may contribute to your wage ranking.
