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Douglas County Sheriff's Office entry pay
What this agency pays a new officer to start, and how that compares with the rest of the country.
Entry pay onlyEvery salary here is what an officer is paid on day one, out of the academy — base pay on a 40-hour week, with no overtime, shift differential, specialty or education pay counted. Nobody stays on it.
Douglas County Sheriff's Office starts at $86,305 a year — about $41.49 an hour on a 2,080-hour year, before overtime. That is $19,620 above the median of the 2,288 agencies on this list, and $22,745 above the median for county agencies.
Cost of livingPrices in Washington run about 7% above the national average, so this is worth roughly $80,649 somewhere at average prices — $5,656 less than the headline figure. Most of that is rent, at 126 against a national average of 100, where goods are 104. Based on state-wide price levels, because this agency is not tied to a single metro area, from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, 2024. The salary above is what the employer publishes; this line is our arithmetic on it, and nothing on this site is ranked on it.
How big the department isDouglas County Sheriff's Office reported 36 sworn officers and 7 civilian staff to the FBI for 2025.No rate is shown: this agency does not police a single population the FBI publishes a figure for. Reporting to the FBI is voluntary, so a count can reflect a partial return as easily as a small agency, and the FBI asks that agencies not be compared on staffing. Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, Full-time Law Enforcement Employees, 2025.
What Douglas County says about itself
Our department is dedicated to providing effective and efficient law enforcement services, protecting the lives and property of the citizens of Douglas County, and ensuring the protection of all person's constitutional rights.
What Douglas County does
The Douglas County Sheriff's Office polices 1,820 square miles of the Columbia basin and Waterville Plateau east of Wenatchee, a county of about 39,700 people, from East Wenatchee. It employs 33 commissioned and 6 non-commissioned staff, runs its own dispatch, and hires through an independent Civil Service Commission under RCW 41.14 which sends the Sheriff the top five names off the eligibility list for each opening.
Where the figure comes from
Checked 22 September 2026. Douglas County "2026 Field Deputy Salary Range", headed "3.0% GWI (General Wage Increase) for Uniformed Employees, Effective January 1, 2026 through December 31, 2026": the GRADE column reads Deputy Trainee $7,192.09, Deputy A $7,297.36, Deputy B $7,592.06, Deputy C $7,907.80, Deputy D $8,064.48, Corporal $8,669.32, Sergeant $9,274.18. — open the source document
$86,305.08 is $7,192.09 a month x 12. THE GRADE IS CALLED "DEPUTY TRAINEE" AND IT IS STILL THE ENTRY PAY - here is why, because the label alone would suggest otherwise. First, the County itself presents it as the starting wage: its Sheriff's Office recruiting flyer prints a Salary table whose first row is "Deputy Trainee", the grade a new hire occupies, above Deputy 3, Deputy 2, Deputy 1, Deputy 1A, Corporal and Sergeant. Second, the differential is nominal, not a stipend: Deputy Trainee is 1.44% below Deputy A, where the steps above it are roughly 4% apart, so this is the bottom rung of the uniformed scale and not a separate cheaper class of worker. Third, the sheet itself is headed "for Uniformed Employees" and the County links it from the entry-level deputy application route. Fourth, what separates trainee from Deputy A is certification, not sworn status: the flyer's Entry Level Deputy Qualifications ask only for US citizenship, age twenty-one, a high school diploma, English literacy and a clean record, while Lateral Deputy Qualifications require completion of a BLEA-equivalency academy AND one year employed full-time as a fully commissioned officer. Prior sworn service is what moves a hire up this scale, and that is the only thing that disqualifies a figure here. Excluded: Deputy A to D, reaching $8,064.48; Corporal and Sergeant; the longevity schedule, which the flyer prices at 1.5% from six years rising to 5.5% from twenty-five; and the specialty premiums, 2% for a trainer, K9 or tactical team member. THE CONTRACT BEHIND THE SHEET COULD NOT BE READ: the County's 2024-2026 Sheriff Guild Uniformed CBA is published as a seventy-five-page scanned image with no text layer, and the Salary Grids page reads "Coming Soon". The salary range sheet is the County's own dated document and stands on its own.
Entry-level base salary only. Overtime, bonuses, education incentives, shift
differentials, locality pay and lateral rates are excluded, so most officers earn more
than this.
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How this level compares
Where Douglas County sits is partly about the agency and partly about which level of policing it belongs to. The three levels do not pay the same.
| Level | Lowest | Median | Highest | Agencies |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Municipal | $33,280 | $68,140 | $163,619 | 1549 |
| County | $35,000 | $63,565 | $132,263 | 516 |
| Special jurisdiction | $31,200 | $60,204 | $107,954 | 71 |
| State | $33,994 | $65,166 | $110,916 | 145 |
| Federal | $70,477 | $73,502 | $86,530 | 5 |
| Territory | $16,640 | $28,236 | $43,354 | 9 |
Federal agencies pay the most to start
The middle federal agency starts at $73,502 — about $5,400 more than the middle municipal agency and about $9,900 more than the middle county agency and about $13,300 more than the middle special jurisdiction agency and about $8,300 more than the middle state agency and about $45,300 more than the middle territory agency. Douglas County starts at $86,305, so $22,740 above the county middle.
How it ranks
Common questions
How much does a Douglas County Sheriff's Office officer make?
Douglas County Sheriff's Office starts a new officer on $86,305 a year, about $41.49 an hour on a 2,080-hour year. That is base salary before overtime, bonuses, education incentives, shift differentials and locality pay, so most serving officers earn more. The figure comes from Douglas County "2026 Field Deputy Salary Range", headed "3.0% GWI (General Wage Increase) for Uniformed Employees, Effective January 1, 2026 through December 31, 2026": the GRADE column reads Deputy Trainee $7,192.09, Deputy A $7,297.36, Deputy B $7,592.06, Deputy C $7,907.80, Deputy D $8,064.48, Corporal $8,669.32, Sergeant $9,274.18..
Is that good pay for a police officer in Washington?
It ranks #53 of 92 agencies we have verified in Washington — 39 pay less, 52 pay more in the state — and #334 of 2,288 nationally. Against the national median it is $19,620 above, and against other county agencies $22,745 above.
Compare with another department
Put Douglas County Sheriff's Office side by side with any other agency on the site — the two salaries, what each is worth once local prices are counted, and which comes out ahead.
The agencies either side of it
Other agencies in WA
| # | Agency | Level | Sworn # | Entry pay | Vs Douglas | National |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Seattle Police Department | Municipal | 1,064 | $117,792 | +$31,487 | #38 |
| 2 | Redmond Police Department | Municipal | 81 | $110,435 | +$24,130 | #59 |
| 3 | Auburn Police Department | Municipal | 120 | $108,386 | +$22,081 | #68 |
| 4 | Lynnwood Police Department | Municipal | 71 | $106,371 | +$20,066 | #81 |
| 5 | Everett Police Department | Municipal | 207 | $102,516 | +$16,211 | #106 |
| 6 | Vancouver Police Department | Municipal | 226 | $101,832 | +$15,527 | #110 |
| 7 | Kirkland Police Department | Municipal | 108 | $101,218 | +$14,913 | #118 |
| 8 | Tukwila Police Department | Municipal | 76 | $101,064 | +$14,759 | #120 |
| 9 | Bothell Police Department | Municipal | 70 | $101,055 | +$14,749 | #121 |
| 10 | Mount Vernon Police Department | Municipal | 43 | $100,836 | +$14,531 | #125 |
| 11 | Kennewick Police Department | Municipal | 107 | $100,104 | +$13,799 | #128 |
| 12 | Edmonds Police Department | Municipal | 48 | $99,168 | +$12,863 | #140 |
Base pay is only part of the year
Whatever the figure above, the rotation is what decides your year — which weekends you lose, when the changeovers land, what you can plan around. Save yours once and BlueShifts shows it a year ahead, with the off-duty jobs you take and what each one paid.
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