Anonymous donations are helping pay for Thurston County Sheriff’s new helicopter
Thurston County Sheriff Derek Sanders plans to support his new helicopter program with community donations.
In a 3-1 decision, the Board of County Commissioners approved the creation of a Sheriff’s Office Aviation Program Donation Fund during their Tuesday business meeting at The Atrium.
The fund will be used to maintain and operate a donated OH-58 helicopter. The Sheriff’s Office obtained the aircraft last fall through a military surplus program, The Olympian previously reported. Amid the county’s ongoing financial challenges, Sanders set up an aviation program by relying on donations. The new fund is meant to help his office better track what donations it receives and how they are spent.
“There’s been a number of business owners and individuals out in the community who have expressed that they would love to donate to an aviation unit … but don’t want it to just go into the general fund or off into the distance where they don’t really know where their dollars are being spent,” Sanders said during the board’s Tuesday morning agenda review meeting.
Northwest Helicopters, a private company based at Olympia Regional Airport, is currently taking apart the helicopter to make sure it’s flight worthy, Sanders told the board on Tuesday. There are no “major red flags” so far, he added.
The company has agreed to provide pilots and maintenance services free of charge to the Sheriff’s Office, Sanders has said. However, a memorandum of understanding with the company is still being worked on, Sanders told the board.
When reached for comment, Sanders told The Olympian he hopes to bring an MOU to the board within about three months and start using the helicopter later this year.
“Our partners are recovering from fire season, where they had a lot of work to be done there, so we’re letting them do what they need to do there,” Sanders said of NW Helicopters.
Once it’s in the air, the Sheriff’s Office will have access to air support without relying on help from outside jurisdictions. Sanders said Washington state has a “severe lack of aviation support” for law enforcement and emergency management compared to other states.
“We hope that this can be a very low, low-cost entry point to get us into this game,” he said.
Sanders has said he primarily intends to use the helicopter for pursuits, patrol and canine assistance, search and rescue operations and to assist with emergency management.
“I’m excited,” Sanders said. “I think it’s going to prove very versatile.”
Once the fund is set up, Sanders said the public can immediately begin mailing checks to the Sheriff’s Office. He plans to set up an online donation option with a vendor soon after.
“We’re almost done with that, so it wouldn’t be too long,” Sanders said.
Commissioners Tye Menser, Carolina Mejia and Wayne Fournier voted in favor of the resolution to create the donation fund during the board’s business meeting Tuesday afternoon. Commissioner Emily Clouse voted against it and Commissioner Rachel Grant was excused from the meeting.
After back and forth throughout the day, Clouse said she supported the idea for the fund, but wanted more time to understand the legality of such donations.
Though the county’s legal team reviewed the resolution, Clouse said she wanted the resolution to cite specific laws that allowed for this fund to be created for the benefit of the public.
“I’m not comfortable passing this resolution,” Clouse said. “I would really appreciate pushing this to the next meeting, simply because I don’t believe we have enough information.”
Will the donation fund improve accountability?
The Sheriff’s Office has so far received two sizable donations from “high level donors” for the aviation program: one for $19,000 and a second for $17,000, Sanders shared last year and reconfirmed on Tuesday.
Betsy Norton, an Olympia resident, said she found it troubling that the county would allow law enforcement to accept anonymous donations, such as the two already donated. She made her remarks during a public comment period before the board’s vote.
“Accepting large private donations, those are large to me, from sources listed as anonymous, but likely known to at least some of the department, erodes public trust that the sheriff’s office is focused on implementing the law for all citizens and favoring none,” Norton said.
Norton asked the county to amend its donation policy to require donors be named and disclose any current or potential conflicts of interest.
Menser shared Norton’s concerns with Sanders, who was not present to hear them earlier in the meeting. Sanders said he did not want to limit donations from people who want to remain anonymous.
“The reality is, we can’t have it both ways,” Sanders said. “We can’t be a government that’s struggling and can’t make ends meet and has to make massive budget cuts, and also one that curtails its own ability to seek assistance from the public.”
He said people who want to donate anonymously often give larger donations and may want to protect their privacy.
Menser, who chairs the board, said he wanted to look into the ethics of anonymous donations further, but did not think that research should hold up the creation of the fund.
So far, the Sheriff’s Office has been accounting for donations within its Public Safety Sales Tax fund, Sanders said. This set up grouped the donations with tax revenue and allowed him to use his budget authority as he saw fit, he explained.
“I already have the authority to spend money in that account, if that makes sense,” Sanders said at the meeting. “That’s exactly how we got the helicopter up here to begin with.”
With the new fund, he said he’ll have to ask the board to approve expenditures, adding an accountability layer.
“I don’t want the idea to be that I get a donation fund, people put hundreds of thousands of dollars in there and I just get to go start swiping credit cards and doing side deals,” Sanders said.
He told the board that having an aviation fund will make it easier for everyone, including the public, to understand how much money is coming in and how it’s being spent.
“As opposed to money coming into the public safety sales tax account, we spend it on the other side, and then give you guys an update after the fact,” Sanders said.
How much does the helicopter program cost?
Though the helicopter was donated, Sanders previously said transporting the helicopter to Thurston County cost about $15,000. The helicopter was delivered across the country after previously being used by the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office in South Carolina.
Sanders said his office paid the out-of-state Sheriff’s Office $10,000 for equipment already installed on the helicopter. He said the equipment is “worth 25 times that” and that he could sell it for profit if the program doesn’t work out.
He expects insurance to cost about $12,000 to $15,000 a year, depending on pilot experience. Lastly, he said he intends to bill fuel costs to two specific funds.
One is a boater safety fund that’s used for water rescues and the other is a drug seizure fund that’s used for anything related to drug interdiction, he said.
The Olympian asked Sanders how much the aviation program will cost annually. He shared a rough estimate.
“We are still assessing this, but we expect around $50,000 for fuel and insurance,” Sanders said. “This is a cost that can be controlled by flight hours, so it’s flexible depending on how much money we have access to.”
He clarified that donations will go toward fuel and insurance costs as available.
“All of the funds combined will be utilized for the program,” he said.
Sanders said he wants to invite the public to see the helicopter up close when it is ready.
This story was originally published January 6, 2026 at 1:49 PM.
