BOSTON — The Massachusetts Sheriffs’ Association has sent a joint letter to Senate Ways and Means Chair Michael Rodrigues and House Ways and Means Chair Aaron Michlewitz outlining what it called a “unified path forward” for the budgeting process of sheriff’s offices throughout the Commonwealth.
The April 16 letter was sent in response to a preliminary report released in February by Massachusetts Inspector General Jeffrey S. Shapiro, which found that the Commonwealth’s 14 sheriffs’ offices ran a combined Fiscal Year 2025 deficit of about $110 million, after reserve and other net transfers were accounted for, down from an initially reported $162.4 million.
Signed by sheriffs from 13 counties and Suffolk County Special Sheriff Mark Lawhorne, the letter agrees that the current budget process is designed in such a way that annual appropriations routinely falling short of actual operating costs, which requires sheriff’s offices to rely on supplemental budgets later in the fiscal year.
“The OIG documents a decades-long pattern in which Sheriffs are funded at 84–90% of actual need in the GAA [General Appropriations Act], with the understanding that supplemental budgets will close the gap after the fiscal year ends,” the letter states. “We recognize that both our offices and the Commonwealth have contributed to this pattern over time. This cycle undermines accountability and predictability for everyone involved. We are asking the Legislature to fund our offices at projected actual cost in the initial appropriation, subject to the independent review described above, so that supplemental requests become the exception rather than the rule.”
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Bristol County Sheriff Paul Heroux said, “The OIG’s report vindicated the sheriffs in that it concluded what we have been saying all along – we need to be funded properly at the beginning of each fiscal year and not rely on supplemental budgets.”
According to the sheriffs’ letter, the association is backing a series of reforms that include enhanced and standardized reporting throughout the budget cycle, quarterly meetings with fiscal partners, greater transparency around revenues, collaborative procurement efforts, and a review of centralized commissary procurement. The sheriffs said they are proposing a more transparent budgeting model that would give lawmakers, the Executive Office for Administration and Finance (A&F), and the public a clearer view of mandated expenses, operational costs, and discretionary spending.
The sheriffs said A&F’s practice of reimbursing sheriffs’ offices for no-cost inmate communication, medication-assisted treatment, collective bargaining agreement costs and cost-of-living increases at the end of the fiscal year forces the offices to deficit spend and makes it harder to manage funds responsibly. They argued those expenses should be funded up front in the initial budget, rather than covered later through supplemental budgets or delayed reserve transfers. If the Legislature and A&F intend to continue using reserve accounts, the letter says those accounts should be fully funded at the start of the year based on prior expenditures and reasonable projections, with money distributed regularly throughout the year. The sheriffs also asked A&F to authorize about $500,000 in entertainment revenue held in escrow by Securus and apply it to sheriffs’ budgets.
The letter says some broader issues still require discussion, including the scope of sheriffs’ authority, discretionary programming and law-enforcement-related activities, sheriff compensation, elected term length, staffing and personnel costs, and civil process operations. On term length, the sheriffs pushed back on the inspector general’s recommendation that lawmakers consider reducing sheriffs’ elected terms from six years to four, arguing that the issue falls outside the scope of the budget review.
The letter was signed by sheriffs from Barnstable, Berkshire, Bristol, Dukes, Essex, Franklin, Hampden, Hampshire, Middlesex, Nantucket, Norfolk, Plymouth and Worcester counties, along with Suffolk County Special Sheriff Mark Lawhorne. In closing, the letter states that it reflects the shared position of those who signed it and requests an opportunity to present the recommendations in person.
