(The Center Square) – A proposed contract between the King County Sheriff’s Office and the city of North Bend is slated to provide police services to the city beginning in April.
North Bend has contracted with its neighboring city of Snoqualmie since 2012. The current contract ended at the end of 2024 and a short-term renewal agreement was entered into with Snoqualmie, extending services until a transition of services was reached.
The transition to the King County Sheriff’s Office will begin April 1 once the interlocal agreement is approved.
According to a fiscal note, expenditures by the sheriff’s office to police North Bend would total $7.31 million in the 2026-27 biennium, $6.7 million in 2028-29, and $7.11 million in 2030-31. Despite the fluctuation, salary-related expenditures would only increase from $6.52 million in 2026-2027 to $6.67 million in 2030-2031.
Revenues for the service total $6 million for the first biennium year with increases to $7.11 million in 2030-31.
North Bend’s contract with Snoqualmie for policing services totaled $2.51 million in 2024 and during the 2025 short-term renewal agreement, North Bend paid $236,306 per month, or $2.84 million for the year.
King County Sheriff’s Office Communications Manager Brandyn Hull confirmed to The Center Square that the department will not transfer deputies from unincorporated areas, a concern raised during budget concerns last year.
“We will be hiring specifically for North Bend deputies, and these positions will not come at the expense or resources of our other unincorporated areas,” Hull said to The Center Square in an email.
In 2025, King County faced a projected $150 million shortfall that Sheriff Patti Cole-Tindall warned could lead to funding cuts that would force the department to move nearly half of its existing deputies from unincorporated King County into revenue-backed positions to fill contract-obligated vacancies.
That was ultimately avoided as the county was able to successfully close the gap. If officers were transferred away from patrolling unincorporated areas, that could have resulted in delayed police response times, or no response at all for non-life threatening calls.
North Bend Mayor Mary Miller selected King County Sheriff Sergeant Ed Hall to serve as North Bend police chief in November 2025. Hall most recently served as a sergeant for the city of Sammamish. He served as a King County Sheriff’s Office deputy for the city of North Bend under a previous city contract from 2004 to 2005.
