San Juan County Sheriff's Office entry pay

What San Juan County says about itself

Protect the lives, rights, and property of all people through crime prevention and enforcement of the law with equity and dignity for all.

What San Juan County does

The San Juan County Sheriff's Office is the only general-purpose police agency in the San Juan Islands, an archipelago in the Salish Sea reachable only by boat or air, and works from a main office in Friday Harbor with a substation on Lopez Island. Deputies handle patrol, investigations, marine patrol and civil process across the islands, and the office also runs county dispatch, with deputies and dispatchers in the same Guild bargaining unit.

Where the figure comes from

Checked 22 September 2026. San Juan County 2026 Sheriff's Guild Pay Scale - Deputies and Detectives, headed "3% COLA 2026 DEPUTY hours - 2088": the DEPUTY BASE PAY block reads Step 1 hourly 44.02, annual 91913.76, monthly 7659.48. — open the source document
$91,913.76 is the County's OWN annual figure for Deputy base pay Step 1 and no arithmetic has been applied to it; it is $44.02 an hour on the 2,088-hour year the chart names, not 2,080. STEP 1 IS THE HIRE RATE, NOT A TWELVE-MONTH RATE: the block carries thirteen steps and above them a row of intervals reading 12 months, 24 months and so on to 144 months - twelve labels against thirteen steps, so the labels mark the increases and Step 1 is what is paid on hire. NOTHING IS PAID LESS. The contract's Article 5 Section 3 says in terms that "Paid provisional deputies shall be paid entry level deputy hourly wages, but not the other contractual" benefits, so even a provisional appointment draws this rate, and Article 7 sets a probationary year - one year from hire, or one year from graduating Basic Law Enforcement Training for those who must attend - with no separate probationary rate anywhere on the chart. Reserve deputies are unpaid volunteers under Section 2. Excluded from the figure: Steps 2 to 13, which run to $56.21 an hour; the four longevity tiers, 2.36% at fifteen years rising to 9.5% at thirty; every specialty premium, which range from 1.5% for a firearms, defensive tactics or patrol tactics instructor through 2.5% for a designated FTO and 3.5% for a K-9 handler to 7% for a designated senior deputy and 8% for a lead detective; and the $2,500 recruitment incentive, which Article 24 restricts to lateral transfers who have already completed academy training. THE CONTRACT'S OWN PAY APPENDIX IS STALE AND SAYS SO: Appendix C of the published Guild agreement is headed "Appendix C - Update Pending Bargaining" and prices Deputy Step 1 at $41.90 an hour, $87,150.24 a year on 2,080 hours. THAT FIGURE DOES NOT RECONCILE WITH THE RAISES THE SAME CONTRACT STATES. Article 8 gives "six percent (6%) general wage increase effective the January 2025 payroll" and "three percent (3%) general wage increase effective the January 2026 payroll", which compounded would put $41.90 at $45.75, not $44.02; run the other way, $44.02 divided by 1.03 and then 1.06 gives $40.32. The whole appendix sits a uniform 5.07% below the 2026 chart at every step - Step 13 is $53.50 against $56.21, the same ratio - so it is one undated revision behind rather than wrong in places. THE DATED CHART IS THE FIGURE AND THE APPENDIX IS NOT; the County flagged it itself.
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.

How this level compares

Where San Juan 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.

How it ranks

Common questions

How much does a San Juan County Sheriff's Office officer make?

San Juan County Sheriff's Office starts a new officer on $91,914 a year, about $44.19 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 San Juan County 2026 Sheriff's Guild Pay Scale - Deputies and Detectives, headed "3% COLA 2026 DEPUTY hours - 2088": the DEPUTY BASE PAY block reads Step 1 hourly 44.02, annual 91913.76, monthly 7659.48..

Is that good pay for a police officer in Washington?

It ranks #34 of 92 agencies we have verified in Washington — 58 pay less, 33 pay more in the state — and #230 of 2,288 nationally. Against the national median it is $25,229 above, and against other county agencies $28,354 above.

The agencies either side of it