Committee nixes Island sheriff pay raises, favors consolidation
A legislative committee on Monday rebuffed Gov. Deval Patrick's effort to raise the pay of two county sheriffs and began a process that the committee co-chairmen say could lead to the elimination of two sheriffs' offices.
The governor's bill, intended to facilitate budget savings by folding seven county sheriffs - and their thousands of employees - into the state, stoked public ire with a provision that would have raised to $123,000 from $97,000 the salaries of the sheriffs in sparsely populated Dukes and Nantucket Counties. That raise would bring the two sheriffs in line with other county sheriffs across the state, despite a miniscule house of correction in Dukes County and none at all on Nantucket.
In a letter accompanying his bill, Gov. Deval Patrick said his proposal would provide "more stable and predictable budgeting" for the sheriffs' offices. The letter made no mention of the proposed pay raises. Administration and Finance Secretary Leslie Kirwan defended the raises when the bill received a hearing last month, calling them a "small issue" compared to the $6 million to $9 million that she estimated would be saved under the bill.
The bill, scheduled to go into effect on July 1, would bring sheriffs and employees from the two islands and Barnstable, Bristol, Suffolk, Norfolk and Plymouth counties onto state benefit and payroll systems and end the practice of supporting sheriffs through real estate deeds revenues, which have slumped along with the real estate market. Local officials, such as the Dukes County commissioners, have expressed concern that the bill leaves municipalities within the counties with unfunded retiree healthcare and pension liabilities.
The state's 14 sheriffs are elected by residents in each county. Sheriffs oversee each county's house of corrections - except for Nantucket, which has none - the treatment and transportation of prisoners, reentry programs for ex-prisoners, correction officer training and programs for inmates. Inmate programs include drug rehabilitation, anger management, and parenting skills.
In their bill, committee members largely agreed with the governor's proposal. However, the bill approved by the State Administration Committee maintains the Dukes County sheriff's salary at $97,000, equal to 75 percent of the pay of an associate justice of the Superior Court, and lowers to $71,000 the salary of the Nantucket County sheriff, about 55 percent of the salary of a Superior Court associate justice.
"That is a very fair salary for an official that does not have any house of corrections and has responsibility that does not seem to match that of the other counties," said Sen. Brian Joyce (D-Milton), the co-chairman of the committee, said of the proposed Nantucket sheriff's salary.
The committee's bill also seeks constitutional means to eliminate or consolidate sheriff's offices, which both committee chairmen said could spell the end for the two island offices.
An eight-member commission established by the bill would study general consolidation and cost saving efforts and report by the end of the year. Committee co-chairs Rep. Steven Walsh (D-Lynn) and Joyce said constitutional questions prevented them from including consolidation provisions in the bill.
The special commission will include a member of the Massachusetts Sheriffs' Association, a county commissioner and two appointees each of the governor, Senate president and House speaker.
Walsh said eliminating the two island sheriffs and empowering the Barnstable sheriff to cover their territory, for example, would create a structure similar to district attorneys, and would justify paying each equally. He said he believed it could be accomplished without a constitutional amendment, noting that the "constable" system predated the Massachusetts constitution.
In his fiscal 2010 budget proposal, Governor Patrick proposes $481.8 million to be disbursed among the 14 sheriffs, with Suffolk County receiving the largest appropriation ($94 million) and Nantucket the smallest ($809,000).
The sheriffs' offices are expected to employ 6,208 people in fiscal 2010, according to the governor's budget. Of those employees, Nantucket employs just three and Dukes 44. Barnstable, Bristol, Suffolk, Norfolk and Plymouth Counties employ between 377 and 1,104 workers.
County sheriffs that have been previously folded into the state system include Middlesex, Essex, Hampden, Hampshire, Worcester, Franklin and Berkshire.
The committee bill leaves sheriffs' employees and retirees in the county pension system but transfers their healthcare coverage to the Group Insurance Commission, a move the committee hopes will ease county liabilities.
To help counties pay down their unfunded pension costs, the committee would allow the counties to keep hundreds of thousand of dollars in special "maintenance of effort" payments they are now required to give to the state each year. Once those costs are paid, the maintenance of effort assessments would be abolished, which Joyce said would reduce the savings for the state, but ease the burden on counties, and therefore, taxpayers.
The committee bill also eliminates a provision that would have allowed the administration to seek reimbursement from the counties for liabilities such as court judgments. A "County Government Finance Review Board" would give up or down approval to county budgets. The board, according to the bill, would include the secretary of administration and finance, the commissioner of revenue and the state auditor. The committee version eliminates public safety and sheriffs representatives to the board.
The bill passed unanimously in the committee, but committee member Rep. Joyce (D-Peabody), a latecomer to the executive session, said the bill failed to capitalize on a key revenue stream and that she would have voted against it.
The bill, Spiliotis noted, allows sheriffs to keep dollars they raise by charging prisoners for phone calls and items like deodorant or bags of chips. In addition, all sheriffs, with the exception of the Nantucket County sheriff, would be allowed to retain "civil process" fees collected on anything from summons to divorce cases to trials. "If there's money from phone calls, why shouldn't it go into the General Fund?" she asked.
In an impromptu exchange after the committee meeting, Joyce questioned whether Spiliotis had read the bill and then suggested she file a "friendly amendment" to further study the funds sheriffs were raising from phone calls and convenience items.
Rep. Walsh told the News Service that any funds raised by the sheriffs once they had been folded into the state would be under the purview of the Patrick administration. Excess dollars, then, would be automatically reverted into the state's general fund. In an exchange with Spiliotis, Walsh noted that sheriffs' offices had been "running a deficit," forcing them to request midyear supplemental payments from the state.
