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Garfield 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.
Garfield County Sheriff's Office starts at $54,685 a year — about $26.29 an hour on a 2,080-hour year, before overtime. That is $12,000 below the median of the 2,288 agencies on this list, and $8,874 below the median for county agencies.
Cost of livingPrices in Washington run about 7% above the national average, so this is worth roughly $51,102 somewhere at average prices — $3,584 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 isGarfield County Sheriff's Office reported 7 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 Garfield County says about itself
The mission of the Garfield County Sheriff's Office is to protect and assist the people of Garfield County. Our dedicated law enforcement staff will maintain excellence in this endeavor and will continually improve our knowledge, skills, and abilities through personal development and training.
What Garfield County does
The Garfield County Sheriff's Office is the police agency for the smallest county in Washington - about 2,300 people in the wheat country between the Snake River and the Blue Mountains - working from Pomeroy. The same small staff runs patrol, the civil division, records and the county's dispatch center, and the Sheriff's Office recruits its deputies through a three-member volunteer Civil Service Commission that meets on the last Tuesday of every month.
Where the figure comes from
Checked 22 September 2026. Garfield County Sheriff's Office Job Opportunities page: "Deputy: Lateral or Entry-Level - Salary Between $54,685.29 & 77,202.72 with competitive benefit package". — open the source document
$54,685.29 is the County's own figure and nothing has been done to it. THE FIGURES ARE ANNUAL AND THE SAME PAGE PROVES IT: immediately beneath the deputy range the Sheriff's Office prices its Communications Officer as "Full Time: $50,516.49 to $53,350.66 yearly" and "Part Time: $24.29 per hour", so the page labels its yearly figures and its hourly ones and the deputy range sits with the yearly ones. ENTRY AND LATERAL SHARE ONE RANGE, so the bottom is the entry-level deputy. The Civil Service Commission page confirms the two are advertised as separate recruitments off the same band - "Entry Level Sheriff's Deputy; Lateral Sheriff's Deputy" - and no recruit, cadet or trainee wage is named anywhere on the site. Excluded from the figure: the rest of the band to $77,202.72, and the separately priced Communications Officer classes. THE RATE IS OLD AND THE COUNTY DOES NOT DATE IT. The standing Job Opportunities page carries no effective date, but the identical range appears on a Sheriff's Office news release dated 31 March 2022, so the figure is at least four and a half years old and may be older. The page is current in other respects - it states "All positions are filled at this time but we maintain an eligibility list" - so it is being maintained, just not repriced. GARFIELD PUBLISHES NO SALARY SCHEDULE AND NO COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AGREEMENT; this page is the only figure the County states. RE-READ IT WHEN A NEW RECRUITMENT OPENS.
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 Garfield 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. Garfield County starts at $54,685, so $8,880 below the county middle.
How it ranks
Common questions
How much does a Garfield County Sheriff's Office officer make?
Garfield County Sheriff's Office starts a new officer on $54,685 a year, about $26.29 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 Garfield County Sheriff's Office Job Opportunities page: "Deputy: Lateral or Entry-Level - Salary Between $54,685.29 & 77,202.72 with competitive benefit package"..
Is that good pay for a police officer in Washington?
It ranks #91 of 92 agencies we have verified in Washington — 1 pay less, 90 pay more in the state — and #1,878 of 2,288 nationally. Against the national median it is $12,000 below, and against other county agencies $8,874 below.
Compare with another department
Put Garfield 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 Garfield | National |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Seattle Police Department | Municipal | 1,064 | $117,792 | +$63,107 | #38 |
| 2 | Redmond Police Department | Municipal | 81 | $110,435 | +$55,750 | #59 |
| 3 | Auburn Police Department | Municipal | 120 | $108,386 | +$53,701 | #68 |
| 4 | Lynnwood Police Department | Municipal | 71 | $106,371 | +$51,686 | #81 |
| 5 | Everett Police Department | Municipal | 207 | $102,516 | +$47,831 | #106 |
| 6 | Vancouver Police Department | Municipal | 226 | $101,832 | +$47,147 | #110 |
| 7 | Kirkland Police Department | Municipal | 108 | $101,218 | +$46,532 | #118 |
| 8 | Tukwila Police Department | Municipal | 76 | $101,064 | +$46,379 | #120 |
| 9 | Bothell Police Department | Municipal | 70 | $101,055 | +$46,369 | #121 |
| 10 | Mount Vernon Police Department | Municipal | 43 | $100,836 | +$46,151 | #125 |
| 11 | Kennewick Police Department | Municipal | 107 | $100,104 | +$45,419 | #128 |
| 12 | Edmonds Police Department | Municipal | 48 | $99,168 | +$44,483 | #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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