Tacoma Washington Hopes to Lure Experienced Police Officers with $50K Signing Bonuses

Tacoma City Council members unanimously approved a new program to incentivize with a $50,000 signing bonus the hiring of experienced, Washington-based police officers to combat understaffing in the Tacoma Police Department.

The new incentive program will give police officers who are already credentialed under the state’s Criminal Justice Training Commission a $25,000 bonus upon the date of their hire, $12,500 after completing a 12-month probationary period and another $12,500 one year after the end of the probationary period. Officers hired under the program also will receive anywhere from 40 to 120 hours of floating holiday leave depending on when they are hired, according to the city.

The program would cost $3.4 million from 2025 through 2027 — which hasn’t been accounted for in the city’s 2025-2026 biennial budget, but the city will account for in its regular budget modification process in October. That includes money to cover the costs of the hiring bonuses, the additional cost of expanding the department’s fleet and new equipment for new hires to use. The program’s approval, which received the council’s full support, comes as the city contends with a structural budget deficit, with expenses higher than expected and revenues lower than expected.

“While we face tough budget choices, public safety must remain our top priority,” Mayor Victoria Woodards said in a statement.

Michelle Woodrow, the city’s public safety and labor negotiator, told the council at its Sept. 9 meeting that the department has about 30 vacancies and has had to rely on overtime hours to cover the gap. Woodrow said paying officers overtime is more expensive and puts a strain on officers already in the department.

The incentive program, called a lateral police officer incentive program, specifically applies to officers who already have certain credentials in the state of Washington. Woodrow said that brand new officers at the Tacoma Police Department typically undergo a year of onboarding and training, meaning new hires can’t be officially deployed into the community until about a year after they are hired. Hiring officers who have already undergone some amount of training in the state of Washington means their onboarding time is reduced to as little as two months, meaning they can be deployed much sooner.

The total cost over five years for a single entry-level officer hired at the department is $968,800, and officers with experience under the incentive program working in Washington will cost $1,039,400 over the same amount of time, Woodrow said. The more experienced officers bring more value to the department because they provide the department with 10 months of service within their first year, compared to entry-level officers who are still onboarding during that time, Woodrow said.

“TPD thinks with this approach they will see a significant increase in qualified and experienced laterals wanting to join the department, and the goal of the program is to recruit the best of Washington state,” Woodrow said at the meeting.

The implementation of the program means that the Tacoma Police Department would be fully staffed by 2027, as opposed to 2029 if the program had not been approved, she added.

Officers who qualify for the incentive program but leave before the two years are up will be required to return the full amount of the payments they received, according to the city. The program went into effect immediately after the council’s approval.

The department has received about 40 applications from officers who would qualify for the program since it began discussing it publicly, Woodrow said.

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