Local law enforcement faces staffing, recruiting issues

Governor calls for more funding

Updated April 15, 2025.

The applicant pool for open positions at the Anacortes Police Department was large enough a handful of years ago that recruiting wasn’t even necessary. Now, that’s far from the reality.

“Today, recruiting is a regular part of what we do,” spokesperson Brent Lindquist said, “and it includes traveling to colleges and job fairs to put ourselves out there and let potential applicants know what we have to offer.”

The problem persists across San Juan, Whatcom and Skagit counties. This month, lawmakers weighed in on whether to support Gov. Bob Ferguson’s plan to give an additional $100 million to help local law enforcement agencies with staffing issues.

Some agencies cited challenges like housing affordability, while others said changing laws and public perception around policing have taken a toll on staff. A number of them said the staffing issues have made it difficult or impossible to maintain 24-hour coverage.

“Every agency probably around the state, including us, is understaffed,” said Mount Vernon Police Department spokesperson Lt. Dave Shackleton.

“Every agency probably around the state, including us, is understaffed”

The department has the budget for 46 officers but hasn’t been at that level for a long time. Currently, it’s at 41 officers.

“Everybody’s doing recruiting and competing for the same candidates,” Shackleton continued. “When I tested 28 years ago, there were probably 200 candidates for the position, and today, there’s very few testing for policing positions, and so those that are qualified are in high demand.”

The average base salary for an entry-level police officer in Washington is just over $106,000 annually, with the lower end of the pay scale dipping to $84,563, according to Indeed.com. In Bellingham, for example, the annual pay for a certified police officer is between $88,068 and $113,292. Meanwhile, San Juan County pays sheriff’s deputies $87,150 annually.

Changing law and public perception

Several agencies said recruiting can be difficult in an era with back-and-forth police reform efforts and where some public perception toward the industry has soured.

The Skagit County Sheriff’s Office, for example, lost 20 sergeants and deputies after reforms went into place in 2021, said Undersheriff Chad Clark.

“Not as many people are applying to work in law enforcement as the restrictions on police has taken its toll,” he wrote in an email. “I think things have calmed some with some of the bills not passing.”

Washington passed sweeping p o lice reform bills in 2021 in response to the killing of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement. The changes ranged from banning chokeholds and “no-knock” warrants and restricting car pursuits to requiring additional oversight for hiring and reporting misconduct.

Proponents of the laws said they brought needed accountability, while critics saw some of the changes impeded effective police responses and were not fully thought out.

Just the next year, some of the reform was rolled back. Police could once again use force to stop those fleeing temporary investigative detentions or to detain or transport those in a mental health crisis.

Retirements and vaccine mandates

Bellingham Police Department’s ranks also took big hits from both retirements and a staffing loss post-vaccine mandate.

The department has had three separate chiefs within 18 months following the retirements of Chief David Doll in 2021 and Interim Chief Flo Simon in 2022 after current Chief Rebecca Mertzig was hired. Those changes took place amongst other leadership-level retirements, including staff in dispatch and records.

“When a 25-year officer retires, that is a lot of knowledge leaving the building,” spokesperson Lt. Claudia Murphy wrote in an email.

“Public perception related to policing can have a big effect
on recruitment, which is an issue we had never really faced
as a police department prior to a few years ago.”

The department also lost 12 employees after vaccine mandates went into effect — a loss Murphy said the department took years to recover from. It currently has nine vacancies.

Multiple agencies said changing public sentiment after George Floyd’s murder meant there were fewer individuals interested in law enforcement careers.

“Public perception related to policing can have a big effect on recruitment, which is an issue we had never really faced as a police department prior to a few years ago,” Lindquist said.

Both Bellingham and Mount Vernon police said low staffing forced them to pull detectives or specialty staff like school resource officers back onto patrol to maintain the minimum staffing required to respond to 911 calls.

San Juan County Sheriff’s Office faces unique challenges to staffing due to its location and the high cost of living on any of the islands. Sheriff Eric Peter said he and a handful of other leadership staff are lucky enough to have pensions from out-of-state police jobs that make working in the county more feasible.

“Staffing has always been a challenge here,” he said. “You got the challenges with the ferry system — and sometimes ferries being canceled or ferries running late — and that there are some people who just don’t want to deal with those issues up here on top of the stress that comes from the job.”

Staffing is such an obstacle that the sheriff’s office isn’t able to staff 24 hours a day. Instead, the last officer on shift is on call until the next person comes in the next morning. Peter said even with several recruits in the hiring pipeline, he’ll still be understaffed.

That has an impact on both prevention and response to crime he, said. There have been burglaries in the middle of the night, for example, that haven’t been responded to until the next morning.

“If we had someone in a car on duty, just the presence of the patrol car around is a deterrent already, but you may be able to stop or intervene in a burglary,” he said.

Local efforts

In response to recruiting difficulties, agencies are beefing up their efforts or changing their requirements. Several agencies said additional funding could go a long way.

The Mount Vernon Police Department, for example, opted to waive its requirement that lateral officers hold an associate’s degree if they have at least three years of law enforcement experience or military training. It also offers a $25,000 signing bonus. Those who can pass a Spanish fluency test can also get a 4% salary increase — currently nine of the department’s 46 officers speak Spanish.

Skagit County, meanwhile, has spent several thousand dollars on radio ads and a professional recruiting video, said Undersheriff Chad Clark.

“Recruiting is still an issue, so the funding would definitely help in that regard,” Clark said.

A patrol vehicle provides space for a recruitment ad for the Bellingham Police Department per a July 2022 photo. (Salish Current)

The Bellingham Police Department has added a signing bonus for individuals who are conversant in a second language, namely Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, Punjabi or American Sign Language.

The department also changed its educational standards for a year to attract recruits who had relevant life experience but insufficient college, but Murphy said the change did not have a significant impact on recruiting.

“Recruiting has to change with the times, as generationally people respond to different things and choose careers for different reasons,” she said. “We have to be adaptable to that phenomenon despite things like the pandemic and civil unrest in response to a high-profile murder like George Floyd.”

Deb Slater, spokesperson for Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office, said the office is “constantly reevaluating its recruitment strategies.” That’s included increasing its presence at community events, job fairs and social media platforms.

“Recruitment for law enforcement and corrections is challenging industry-wide,” she wrote in an email. “Additional funding could enable us to increase our recruitment efforts and potentially offer more competitive incentives.”

San Juan County Sheriff Eric Peter agrees. He’s currently trying to pivot recruitment efforts to social media in hopes of attracting younger recruits.

“We don’t have a budget and barely have manpower staffing to go out and do a bunch of recruiting,” he said. “It would be nice to have some extra money from the state for some additional hiring.”

State dollars?

If Ferguson has his way, the $100 million plan could make a big impact locally. He’s vowed to veto any budget that doesn’t include the money. But it’s growing unclear whether the plan will materialize into reality.

Ferguson and supporters of the plan point out that staffing levels have been on the decline for years. Opponents, namely the state’s Legislative Black Caucus, have opposed his plan, arguing more money for police should be paired with additional funding for social services.

SB 5 060, which would have created a state-level grant program for local departments to hire officers, appears to be dead in committee.

Meanwhile, HB 2015 has been billed by its sponsor as a compromise between Ferguson’s proposal and opponents’ concerns.

It also creates a grant program; however, unlike SB 5060, that grant money could be used for things like trauma-informed trainings and mental health responses. HB 2015 also allows municipalities to adopt a new sales tax to fund criminal justice without voter approval.

With less thank two weeks left in the current legislative session, though, it’s anyone’s guess where the legislature will settle on the funding question. Lindquist, for one, isn’t getting his hopes up. [Ed.: Updated to reflect end of legislative session on April 27.]

“Increased funding would be welcome, of course, but it will take time to learn what these bills actually entail, as they can change a great deal during the legislative session,” he said.

— By Sydnee Chapman

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