They filled the chairs. They stood in the back of the room, crammed against the glass walls. They spilled out into the Atrium’s common area.
One man even held up a storage bin lid with a scribbled message that read, “best sheriff ever.”
In the end, roughly 100 county residents came to the Thurston County Board of Commissioners meeting Tuesday afternoon to express their overwhelming support for Sheriff Derek Sanders and his office.
More than that, they voiced concern over the potential cuts to county funding, which, as of Tuesday, were north of $4.5 million for the sheriff’s office.
Thurston County is estimating a $23.8 million structural deficit in its general fund.
Prior to the public comment portion of the meeting, Chair Tye Menser said the board was committed to public safety and taking steps to minimize the impacts of budget reductions.
“We’ve been working through this process over the last several weeks, and just this morning, the board considered additional proposals that could conceptually reduce the original sheriff’s office cut from an original $13.2 million to about two and a half million,” Menser said.
According to Menser, Sanders has indicated this new figure of $2.5 million is one that the sheriff “could work with to minimize public safety impacts.”
“Preliminary decisions on those proposals will occur tomorrow, so public comment today is well-timed,” Menser said Tuesday. “But given that the sheriff’s office is by far the largest portion of the county’s general fund, it is not possible to eliminate any reduction entirely and still balance our budget. Nearly every office and department in the county will be seeing budget reductions for 2026, many far greater than 5%, some as high as 18%.”
With that, Sanders kicked off the public comments, arriving at the podium to a round of applause from the audience. He began by acknowledging the “extremely challenging position” the commissioners were in, managing competing interests, unfunded mandates and poor economic conditions while overseeing budgets “with limited revenue and unlimited community need.”
He added that Menser had “maybe the most challenging job in the entire county right now.”
“The reality is most people don’t understand what is happening across the complexity of our layered government,” Sanders said. “And it is leaving everyone frustrated and confused. It is my hope that, moving forward, we as elected officials can all better educate our citizens on the very real systemic problems that are facing county-level government.”
The sheriff then spoke to his frustrations, which include the fact that Washington state ranked last in the nation in 2024 with 1.38 police officers per 1,000 citizens. The national average is 2.31 per 1,000 people, according to the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs.
The story was worse in Thurston County, the sheriff said, until “citizens voted to get us out of that deficit.” Even with the trajectory change, more work is needed to increase staffing, Sanders said.
Sanders said he was surprised to find out Tuesday that Commissioner Emily Clouse had inquired about a $37,000 expense from the sheriff’s budget, which he said the department had both the donated funds — and the authority — to pay for.
“Because last week, when Animal Services had their $250,000 budget cut fully restored, you referred to the $250,000 as ‘budget dust,’” Sanders said. “For other entities, $250,000 gets to count as budget dust, but for us, $37,000 feels like it needs a fine-tooth comb.”
The expense, Sanders said, referred to the transportation of what he called a “free helicopter with $250,000 of equipment on it.” A helicopter that will become a “force multiplier” for the office, according to the sheriff.
He then commended the board for being instrumental in turning the sheriff’s office around, and implored its members to use their voices at the state level to change funding priorities.
Despite warning of the consequences of having less money in 2026 to support a growing population, the sheriff concluded by saying the office will continue to “get the job done, because we’ve always done more with less and, first and foremost, we care about each of our citizens.”
More than 20 county residents spoke over the next 45 minutes, virtually all in support of Sanders — and all but one against any proposed cuts to the sheriff’s budget.
The lone dissenting voice came from an electrician who accused the department of profiling working-class drivers and construction workers, saying the alleged practices were punitive, revenue-driven, and eroded trust.
“If they have resources for harassment (and) intimidation, then they can certainly reprioritize within a leaner budget,” the man said.
