Spokane County Commission approves $31,000 sheriff salary raise
The Spokane County sheriff will be receiving a nearly $31,000 raise after county commissioners honored his request to ensure he was the top-paid person in county law enforcement.
The county’s governing board voted unanimously Tuesday to set the sheriff’s salary at 5% more than an undersheriff’s salary until 2029, which means Sheriff John Nowels will earn $236,340. When Spokane Police Chief Kevin Hall started his job in August, his pay was $247,804.
The commissioners did not address the raise directly at the meeting, aside from the vote.
Nowels requested the pay bump two weeks ago, citing recent labor negotiations between the county and sheriff’s deputies that pushed command staff compensation above his own. The agency’s four undersheriffs earn a base salary of about $224,000, while inspectors receive $213,000.
The lower end of the command staff, lieutenants, will receive base pay between $170,500 and $188,500, according to the agency’s data.
“The lieutenants are going to be getting paid, at least base salary-wise, very close to what I made,” Nowels said in a prior interview. “Those are my middle managers, and then my executive staff are all going to be surpassing my salary by quite a bit.”
Prior to the new formula approved Tuesday, the sheriff received 90% of the prosecutor’s salary, which was equal to roughly $205,000. Nowels’ new base pay will remain in effect until the salary commission meets in four years to reconsider compensation.
“We want to make sure we’re taking care of our sheriff, so they want to be in that position,” Commission Chair Mary Kuney said in a mid-April interview. “Because I think we could miss out on a lot of quality candidates in the future.”
Kuney, who proposed the new formula and having the salary commission weigh in, said doing so would help keep politics out of the equation for years to come, regardless of who the sheriff is and who sits on the county’s governing board. The salary commission is made up of citizens, and meets biannually to make salary decisions for offices like those of the commissioners, auditor and treasurer, based on a review of wages of elected officials throughout the state.
She said 2029 will be an opportune time to have the salary commission consider the issue again. The recently approved contracts with deputies and command staff will be in effect until 2028, so the salary commission will have any changes stemming from those renewal negotiations in front of them.
In floating his proposal a few weeks ago, Nowels said he plans to reduce an inspector position to a deputy level by the end of the year, when one of the individuals holding that title retires. Doing so would cover the cost of his raise and save the county an estimated $65,000 over the course of three years, he said.
“We’re talking about really a budget-neutral concept, which I appreciate,” Commissioner Chris Jordan said at the time. “Just noting, the norm across the state is that the sheriff is not making less than the people that they supervise, so we’re trying to kind of come into what is the statewide norm.”