Recognizing Thurston County’s ongoing budget troubles, Thurston County Sheriff Derek Sanders is again asking for a pay freeze this year.
He submitted a letter to the Citizen’s Commission on Salaries for Elected Officials, which develops recommendations for elected official salary increases on Tuesday, May 5.
He posted a copy of the letter to his social media page that same day.
The letter reads:
“I am writing to request a pay freeze for my position as Sheriff of Thurston County.
“Last year, I wrote a similar request for a pay freeze which was granted. At the time, Thurston County was facing a substantial budget deficit like many other local governments throughout the state. Those challenges have persisted.
“As the cost of living continues to sharply rise, my employees, neighbors, and fellow community members are struggling to pay their energy bills. Receiving a pay increase as the executive of the Sheriff's Office would be highly inappropriate at this time.
“Thank you for your consideration on this matter.”
The purpose of the Citizen's Commission on Salaries for Elected Officials is to set the salaries of the Thurston County Commissioners and to make recommendations to the Board of County Commissioners regarding the salaries of the elected assessor, auditor, clerk, coroner, prosecuting attorney, sheriff and treasurer.
Sanders’ salary as of 2025 was $182,761, according to documents from the Citizen's Commission on Salaries for Elected Officials. He was the second-highest paid elected official in Thurston County at the time, below the prosecuting attorney, who earned $237,460 that same year. Commissioners, the assessor, the auditor, clerk, coroner and treasurer each had salaries of $147,936.
In the comments section of his original post, Sanders clarified that he and the five members of the Board of County Commissioners had their salaries frozen in place last year at their own request, and that he was asking for his own salary to be frozen again this year.
“I’ll still receive a salary for the job, but am asking for my pay to be frozen in place with no increase given our current economic conditions,” Sanders wrote.
He added that he has been advised that state law prohibits him from taking a pay cut, but does allow him to ask for his salary to not be increased.
The law prohibiting pay cuts for elected officials was designed to prevent a county commissioner from cutting another elected official's pay for an irrelevant issue, according to Sanders.
Thurston County adopted its 2026-27 biennial budget in a contentious 3-2 vote in December. The county was looking at an estimated structural deficit of $23.8 million in 2025 that worsened in the 2026-27 biennium.
In response, the county took a proposed 26% general fund reduction — over $36 million — and whittled it down to a total of $9.84 million in cuts.
While the final cuts weren’t as devastating as the initial proposal, departments still saw significant budget reductions.
The Thurston County Sheriff’s Office saw a $1.24 million cut to law enforcement and a $1.29 million cut to corrections in the final budget — $2.5 million total.
At the time, Sanders expressed that he was not worried about the cuts impacting his department because it is supported by the public safety tax fund, which had a balance of $6.5 million as of October 2025. The fund is financed by the Public Safety Sales Tax approved by voters in April 2024 and is separate from the county general fund.
