Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson at his State of the State address on Jan. 13, 2026.
Bill Lucia / Washington State Standard
Money from Washington’s new $100 million program to boost police hiring has yet to reach cities and counties.
Local officials have been frustrated with the rollout of the grants championed by Gov. Bob Ferguson to address Washington’s status as dead last in the nation in police staffing per capita. They complain it’s been slow and rife with technical issues.
“Is it concerning to cities across the state that nobody has received money from this new law yet?” said Derrick Nunnally, government relations advocate at the Association of Washington Cities. “Yes, absolutely.”
The first round of applications is open through the end of March. The Criminal Justice Training Commission expects to decide on awards within weeks of that deadline.
But so far, just six police departments have applied. The commission plans to host several rounds of grant applications.
There were always concerns about the program. Local governments argued it would be hard to bring on officers with temporary state dollars, leaving departments on the hook for salaries and benefits once the well runs dry. Agencies have to spend the money by mid-2028.
That’s why lawmakers added a requirement for cities and counties to impose a new 0.1% sales tax, or have an existing sales tax focused on funding public safety. The idea was they’d have some long-term funding after the grant expires. But for many jurisdictions, that tax won’t bring in enough. And many don’t want to levy a new tax.
The Seattle City Council, on the other hand, has approved the tax, and expects it to bring in $39 million this year.
The money can be used for more than hiring officers. It can also go toward training and broader public safety efforts, like mental health crisis responders, emergency management planning and community assistance programs. Adding these other uses was key to winning over skeptical progressives who don’t think more cops is the way to improve public safety.
Democrats had to find some compromise, as Ferguson last year vowed to veto a state budget that didn’t include the $100 million grant program.
To qualify for the grants, local governments have to meet a number of criteria, such as following state model policies on various subjects, training on crisis intervention and de-escalation and collecting use-of-force data.
“Compared to the need, it’s a relatively small amount of money, so it’s difficult for a lot of our members to meet those standards in order to qualify,” said Derek Young, executive director of the Washington State Association of Counties.
These requirements add a “tremendous amount of bureaucracy” before money can get to police departments, said Steve Strachan, executive director of the Washington Association for Sheriffs and Police Chiefs. These added steps often fall on city officials on top of their other responsibilities.
“Getting through the verification process is a very heavy lift,” acknowledged Gail Stone, project director working on the grant program at the state training commission.
So far, seven of the state’s 39 counties have taken the first step to try to pass the new sales tax. All but one are in western Washington. About two dozen cities have started the process. Washington has roughly 280 cities. Most cities and counties already get money from one of the existing taxes that would qualify as a prerequisite for the grants.
The money included for this program likely won’t turn the tide on the state’s police staffing issues, Young noted.
“It’s somewhere between a drop in a bucket and a ripple,” he said. “It’s really not that significant.”
‘It’s been very frustrating’
Lynden was one of the first cities to pursue the new state funding. City Administrator John Williams said there was a “lack of rulemaking to guide us through it.” It took months to get answers to the city’s questions.
“A lot of new things were created by the Legislature that were directed to CJTC, and in some cases, those things just did not even exist yet,” Williams said.
For example, the new law says that if cities enacting the new tax don’t comply with the various requirements for training and other areas within 180 days, the state has to withhold $100,000 per month from the tax proceeds.
For Lynden, the tax is expected to bring in about $400,000 per year. So Williams worried that $100,000 per month would mean dipping into the city’s other sales tax revenue. That ended up not being the case under the state’s guidelines.
Lynden started collecting the tax Jan. 1, but officials were prepared to pull back at the last minute if they didn’t get clarification from the state on key points of contention, Williams said.
“It’s been very frustrating, nail-biting,” he said, “to be sure that you were going to be able to meet the requirements.”
Williams hopes to use the new tax revenue to fund wage increases in police labor contracts and potentially hire a new officer eventually. The city recently had to leave a position vacant in the police department’s records office due to budget constraints. It could use the money to refill that role.
As for the grant funding, Williams expects Lynden to initially seek $60,000 to $80,000 for training. The Lynden Police Department has 19 commissioned officers. The city wants to add officers, but doesn’t want to hire more until it sees how much money the new tax brings in.
Getting on track
Last month, the Criminal Justice Training Commission rolled out a new online portal for potential grant applicants. It’s gotten better reviews from local officials.
Strachan said in January he hopes to see officers hired within six months. It could take another year and a half to get new cops onto the streets, given the training they’d need.
Stone had been retired, but the commission brought her in to head up the new program. When she got started on it, people told her it wouldn’t be up and running until January. She disagreed. They were right.
“It’s taken a lot longer than we had anticipated,” Stone said. Though she described the process now as “really pretty well oiled” and said interest in the program is picking up.
“Our goal as an agency is to get money into the hands of every agency that wants it,” she said.
Ferguson said he’s not “totally worried about” the initial issues.
“This is the first time we’ve set up something like this,” the governor told the Standard last month. “It’s fair to say that, hey, we heard feedback saying, ‘Hey, this is too cumbersome. This is too complex.’”
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