SEATTLE – Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell and Police Chief Shon Barnes announced a major increase in police officer hires in 2025 compared to years past.
Harrell, Barnes and other Seattle leaders held a press conference on Monday announcing 60 officers hired this year as of mid-April. According to officials, this same time last year saw just 10 new officers hired, and nearly double the number of applications compared to 2024.
This follows Harrell’s pledge of $916 million to public safety in the 2025–26 budget.
What they’re saying:
“A well-staffed and well-trained police department is essential to effective public safety in Seattle. Our work to modernize recruiting and increase qualified applications is showing results through record hiring in 2025 – putting us on a path to restore Seattle Police Department staffing,” said Mayor Harrell. “Seattle is a city where officers are valued, supported, and part of the team, and together we are making meaningful progress to improve safety for our community.”
According to city leaders, this major hike in officer on-boarding comes from several internal changes — Barnes pointed to attracting more candidates, streamlining the hiring process from 5–9 months to 3–5 months, electronic background checks, increased examination support, remote testing and candidate tracking.
“We’re having success in terms of hiring and I am so proud of the work being done by our recruiters, background detectives, and training unit,” said Chief Barnes. “Since I arrived in Seattle, I have had the pleasure of swearing in four classes of promising new officers. These officers are the next generation of the Seattle Police Department. They’re a smart, diverse, and community-focused group.”
By the numbers:
Perhaps sweetening the deal is Harrell’s new police contract signed in 2024, which now starts recruits at $103,000 with a $7,500 hiring bonus, and giving lateral hires a salary of $116,000 with a $50,000 incentive.
Dig deeper:
The Seattle Police Department has struggled to bring new candidates into the fold since the 2020 George Floyd protests and the 2021 COVID-19 vaccine mandate, but that is not for a lack of trying — since 2014, the police department’s budget has ballooned by more than $100 million. In 2014, the department adopted an operational budget of $288,667,732, and last year, the department received $395,794,770.
The police department has proposed a 2026 budget of $462 million.
“The Seattle Police Department’s success is significant after the challenges we and so many other cities have faced with police recruitment,” said City Council member Bob Kettle, who chairs the Public Safety Committee. “As the Public Safety Committee Chair, police staffing and retention make up one of the important pillars in our public safety approach. After passing more than a dozen public safety bills last year, I am pleased to see the impacts we as a City are having that can help make residents feel safe.”
