March 11, 2008
Leslie Kirwan, Secretary
Executive Office of Administration and Finance
State House, Room 373
Boston, Massachusetts02133
RE: House 4498
Dear Secretary Kirwan:
The CountyCommissioners held a special meeting on February 15, 2008 to discuss House 4498, An ActTransferringCounty Sheriffs to the Commonwealth with Dukes County Sheriff Michael A. McCormack. The Sheriff gave an overview of the current funding method forCountySheriffs.
The Commissioners feel that this bill is not clear on many issues. The first question was why is it so vital to take effect on July 1, 2008?
Sheriff McCormack said that in his meetings with other CountySheriffsthere seems to be items that need to be defined and negotiated. He also stated that he would prefer to keep the functions in the county and have the Commonwealth’s budget line #8910-0000 fully fund county sheriffs. This solution seems possible to Sheriff McCormack as he said that the chief issue with the existingsystem is not funding, it is theprocess. He explained further that in recent years he has had planning restraints since after taking into consideration the County’s Maintenance of Effort and the Deeds Excise revenue, his department’sremaining needs are not fully funded in the state budget.
The commissioners voted unanimously to support Sheriff McCormack’s solution by requesting that the Commonwealth fully fund CountySheriffs through line 8910-0000 of the budget. Therefore, the following amendments to House 4498 are proposed:
Re-title to: An Act to Fully Fund the Budgets of CountySheriffs
Delete: Section 1.
Delete: Sections 6-8
Add to Section 4: “Line 8910-0000 of the Commonwealth’s annual budget shall reflect full funding for CountySheriffs’ programs.”
The CountyCommissioners feel it is misleading to state in the introduction that H4498 “will also save municipalities the portion of the county tax that they now pay to
Secretary Kirwan
March 11, 2008
Page 2
support these sheriffs offices” when we all recognize that all funding is public money. Also, if the towns’ county assessments are reduced as suggested in Section 4, it does not reduce the costs of the Sheriffs’ departments. It reduces resources availablefor cherry sheets.
The liabilities of the Sheriff’s department may well exceed the assets so that the towns will have an assessment anyway, but it will be on their cherry sheet and not quite so obvious.
Much of the savings for health insurance (not health care) through the GIC is due to the fact thatDukesCounty employees will pay an increased share of the costs with reduced benefits. Further, under the GIC,Dukes County Sheriff’sdepartment employees will have only 3 options for health insurance (they now have 5) and Medicare eligible retirees will have one! That one plan is a Medicare Advantage program which requires the retiree to “sign over” their Medicare benefits.
Therefore, the CountyCommissionersvoted to support Sheriff McCormack’s solution that full funding of the CountySheriffs’ budgets through Line 8910-000 of the state budget is the best solution. In that way, counties can continue to provide regional services as the Patrick Administration advocates.
We look forward to further discussion regarding H4498.
Sincerely,
Leslie H. Leland
Chairman
Cc: Therese Murray, Senate President
Salvatore DiMasi, Speaker
Senator Robert O’Leary
Representative Eric Turkington
Sheriff Michael A. McCormack