Mass. inspector general calls sheriffs’ budget process ‘opaque, chaotic and deeply flawed'

The budget process for the state’s 14 sheriff departments is “opaque, chaotic and deeply flawed,” Massachusetts Inspector General Jeffrey Shapiro said in a report released Friday, laying blame on both state lawmakers and sheriffs themselves.

The report comes months after Beacon Hill lawmakers raised alarm about the sheriffs' spending. State legislators ordered Shapiro to conduct a deep dive into spending by the county sheriffs when lawmakers agreed last year to withhold extra funding for their departments. The decision came after more than $100 million in budget overruns by the sheriffs, whose main role is to run the county jails.

In the report, Shapiro said sheriffs’ “budgeting problems” start with the state budget. The commonwealth “routinely” underfunds sheriffs, he wrote, with the understanding that departments will get more money later in the year to cover overruns.

The finding backs up a claim sheriffs have made for months — they say they are regularly in touch with budget writers on Beacon Hill to seek extra money because lawmakers don't fully fund their budget requests.

In prior interviews with WBUR, sheriffs have said their excess spending last year was largely to cover pay increases for union employees, repairs to aging infrastructure, medical treatments for prisoners and state-mandated free phone calls for inmates.

But Shapiro said sheriffs spend beyond their yearly budget allocation without waiting for extra funds to be approved. The overspending is an apparent violation of state law, even though it happens “with at least the tacit approval” of the Legislature and the governor's office, Shapiro said.

Sheriffs should be provided with a reasonable budget "to meet their mandate and then [be] held accountable to operate within that constraint," Shapiro said, adding that supplemental funding should be limited to "rare, unforeseen circumstances."

A spokesperson for House Speaker Ron Mariano said the Legislature requested a report into sheriffs' spending because "there is a clear need for reform."

"We appreciate the IG’s work — and we look forward to reviewing his preliminary recommendations, and to receiving his final report," the spokesperson said in a statement.

A spokesperson for Senate President Karen Spilka declined to comment.

Democrats in the Massachusetts House and Senate repeatedly argued last year that sheriffs did not give them any heads-up on what they described as multi-million-dollar budget overruns.

Lawmakers said the county offices collectively overspent their fiscal 2025 budgets by $162 million. The Massachusetts Sheriffs Association said the actual overspending clocked in at $121 million, of which $26.5 million had already been approved by lawmakers and $95 million was pending.

In a statement, the association's executive director, Carrie Hill, said sheriffs across the state “collaboratively engaged” with Shapiro’s office in the investigation.

“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,” Hill said.

Shapiro said underfunding sheriffs leaves the departments “without a known budget and thus uniquely allows each sheriff to determine their annual amount of spending without oversight.”

“This concept is not rationally based and is contrary to how the budgets for all other state agencies are handled,” Shapiro said in the report.

He also partially attributed the practice to “misunderstandings or insufficient communication between the parties involved.”

Sheriffs and officials in the Executive Office of Administration and Finance, the state agency that helps craft the yearly budget, “have incompatible understandings of the extent to which the Commonwealth will reimburse certain expenditures mandated by statute,” the report said.

It also called out a lack of standardized programming and services among the sheriff's offices, and outdated laws that make it harder to properly fund sheriffs' offices of varying sizes.

The Suffolk County sheriff in Boston, for instance, has a much larger operation than the Dukes County sheriff on Martha's Vineyard.

Shapiro’s office said sheriffs are facing an even higher budget deficit this fiscal year, which ends July 1. That’s partly because the state’s accounting office took the "rare step” of tapping 2026 funds ahead of time, to cover overspending last year, Shapiro said.

“This action has set the stage for a fiscal crisis in fiscal year 2026, with many sheriffs’ offices already in a deficit. By not establishing a realistic budget each year and kicking this known disconnect down the road, the commonwealth exacerbates the problem,” the report said.