Inspector General Jeffrey S. Shapiro called the budgeting process for the state’s 14 sheriffs “opaque, chaotic and deeply flawed,’’ saying in a state report released Friday that the process leads to chronic and growing overspending.
The 62-page report, released by the Office of the Inspector General, blames both sheriffs and lawmakers for what is described as a faulty process. Shapiro found the state has been underfunding sheriffs offices for years with the idea that those offices would spend more than their regular budgets, and then get reimbursed though supplemental budgets.
He called on state lawmakers to revamp the system, which he says is unlike how budgets in any other state agency are managed.
“Sheriffs should be provided with a reasonable budget … to meet their mandate and then held accountable to operate within that constraint. Supplemental funding should be limited to rare, unforeseen circumstances,’’ he wrote in a letter to lawmakers introducing the report.
He also said the Legislature should better define sheriffs’ responsibilities.
“An effective reform will be one in which the Legislature clearly defines the responsibilities and obligations of the sheriffs,” the report states.
Shapiro launched the inquiry last year in response to a request from lawmakers who were concerned after county sheriffs requested millions of dollars in supplemental funding. It’s been a common practice: for years the state’s sheriffs have outspent their annual operating budgets, triggering the need for supplemental funds, but the 2025 fiscal year shortfall was significantly larger than prior years.
At the time, top lawmakers in charge of budgeting said they had concerns about the “financial and operational integrity” of the state’s sheriffs’ offices and said the legislature needed to “rein in questionable spending practices.” In October, state lawmakers withheld the money pending an investigation.
The scrutiny of sheriffs’ spending also comes in the wake of a string of separate legal and ethical troubles involving the sheriffs of Suffolk, Norfolk and Hampden counties.
Sheriffs are elected to six-year terms, and oversee county jails and houses of correction, as well as the transporting of inmates to court appearances and medical appointments. The report pinned some of the budget chaos on the variety of duties conducted by different sheriffs’ offices, some without specific appropriations — from support for short-staffed local police departments to well-being checks for the elderly.
The report singled out Hampden, Plymouth and Suffolk counties for regularly overspending by as much as 28%. It also pointed out that overspending on annual budgets may be a violation of state finance law.
But the IG’s office also reviewed records including emails between sheriffs, lawmakers and top state budgeting officials, and said they showed overspending happened “with the approval” of the legislature and the state’s top finance and budgeting agency.
The report also highlights a flawed system for collecting civil service fees — money that sheriffs collect from serving legal notices, potentially millions of dollars in revenue.
It found some sheriffs retain and spend these funds in private bank accounts outside the state’s central accounting, instead of depositing them with the state treasurer. Shapiro urged lawmakers to update the civil process fee law to create a consistent requirement across counties.
In 2024, the state legislature approved $46 million in supplemental funding for county sheriffs.
This past year, the Massachusetts Sheriffs’ Association said their cumulative shortfall had jumped to more than $121 million. Shapiro’s report revised this amount to roughly $110 million, and criticized the supplemental funding process.
“Since the bills are already due, it is too late to assist in reducing spending,” the report said.
The report also criticized the funding of a free phone call program for inmates set up in late 2023 and funded though a trust fund.
The trust was slashed from $20 million when it was set up to $1 million for 2026. When sheriffs run out of their allotment, lawmakers have topped off the trust through supplemental budgets. By law, Shapiro’s report said, reimbursement should happen on a quarterly basis only if sheriffs produce detailed documentation of the calls.
Sheriffs have defended their spending, citing cost increases in staff payroll, and substance abuse treatment for prisoners. Still, a statement from the Massachusetts Sheriffs’ Association said they welcomed the work of the Inspector General.
“The Sheriffs will closely review the preliminary report’s findings and recommendations and will continue to support efforts that advance transparency and sound fiscal management across the Commonwealth,” the association said in a statement Friday.
Shapiro’s report recommends the Legislature, along with multiple law enforcement agencies, “determine the role of sheriffs’ offices and enumerate the activities sheriffs may and may not conduct” and to potentially trim sheriffs’ terms to four years to match that of other offices like district attorneys.
Shapiro also found 10 of the 14 sheriffs had in recent years received extra pay that was not authorized by law.
According to the report, sheriffs in Barnstable, Berkshire, Franklin, Hampden, Middlesex, Nantucket, Norfolk, Plymouth, Suffolk and Worcester “collectively received more than $260,000 in payments that were not authorized by statute, including longevity bonuses, education incentives and uniform allowance.”
Shapiro called the amount “largely inconsequential” in the scheme of overall spending, but added, “as leaders of their offices, sheriffs must establish a ‘tone at the top’ for their employees.”
Barnstable County Sheriff Donna Buckley hopes the investigation will lead to more transparency so taxpayers can see how much it costs to run a sheriffs’ office, and so lawmakers can more accurately budget. She said annual budgets coming from the statehouse have not reflected “the true cost” of operations.
“Honestly, it just shows the ridiculousness of the funding formula. Because with the actual amount of money that’s on paper we’ve been allotted, we would have to close,” Buckley told GBH News. “So, what it does highlight is that the annual budget numbers bear no relationship to the true cost of operating for us in Barnstable County or for any of the sheriff’s offices.”
Sheriff Buckley said her office is running a deficit largely due to increased salaries to retain corrections officers, and a jump in prison population after the transfers of female prisoners from Suffolk County because of renovations there.
With supplemental funding on hold, sheriffs are warning that current deficits could force the curtailment of some programs including rehabilitative and behavioral health programs.
In January, the Sheriffs’ Association sent a letter to State Senate President Karen Spilka that said sheriffs’ offices had already exhausted their FY26 funding with others expected to follow, and it called for emergency funding.
“This extraordinary gap is not the product of isolated overspending or mismanagement. Rather, it is the direct result of a fundamentally flawed and ineffective funding mechanism that has systematically underfunded the Sheriffs’ operations for more than a decade,” according to the letter signed by all 14 of the state’s sheriffs.
Barnstable County and six other counties are showing negative balances in the current fiscal year as a result of the withholding of supplemental funds, according to a spokesperson for the state Comptroller’s office.
A spokesperson for Middlesex County Sheriff Peter Koutoujian said their office welcomed the review by the Inspector General and hoped “it will lead to a more streamlined approach for funding.”
Other counties declined to comment until they’d fully reviewed the report.
The Inspector General’s Office expects to issue further findings and recommendations in a final report in May but urged a changed approach to upcoming budgeting.
“It is apparent that the role of the sheriffs’ offices may not be as narrow as some legislative leaders expect, nor as expansive as some sheriffs believe,” said Shapiro,”The Legislature has an opportunity to clarify such roles and responsibilities while also reforming a fundamentally broken budget process.”
