Mass. sheriffs blow budgets and dine lavishly on public's dime | Nearly $100,000 no-show consult gig for bumbling former state transpo chief | BBC whiffs on Iranian claims about ayatollah’s funeral |
Last of the big spenders: As they dine out and travel in style at the public’s expense, Massachusetts sheriffs have already blown through their annual budgets, state watchdog contends
We can’t speak to their crime-fighting skills.
But the only thing Massachusetts sheriffs appear to be busting these days is their budgets as they stick taxpayers with the bill for dinners at culinary hotspots and trips to vacation destinations.
Some of the state’s 14 county sheriffs have already spent well over their state-allocated budgets, and the fiscal year still has four months to go, Inspector General Jeffrey S. Shapiro warns in a new report.
All told, sheriff departments across the state, from Berkshire to Suffolk and Barnstable counties, are on track to surpass last year’s already massive $110 million spending overrun.
However, it’s not just the huge overruns that have attracted the Inspector General’s attention, but also what sheriffs are spending taxpayer money on, such as expensive trips and lavish meals at pricey restaurants.
As Contrarian Boston’s Colman M. Herman has reported, Suffolk, Essex, Barnstable, and Dukes County sheriffs routinely burn through tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars a year on meals and travel.
Kevin Coppinger, the sheriff of Essex County, shelled out nearly $39,000 of taxpayer money on hotels, airfare, meals, catered events, and registration fees, according to public records obtained by Contrarian Boston.
The most noteworthy meal? That would be the outrageous $784 night out at the tres chic, tres pricey Capital Grill in Orlando where sheriff department employees, chowed down on porcine bone-in ribeye ($89), filet mignon ($87), bone-in ribeye steak ($85), bone-in kona ($76), tenderloin steak with lobster tails ($75), and scallops and lobster risotto ($68).
Suffolk County Sheriff Steven Tompkins, currently on leave as he faces criminal charges, shelled out a whopping $38,000 of taxpayer money on food, lodging, and airfare for himself and his underlings to go to meetings in hot spots such as New Orleans, Las Vegas, Washington, DC, and Hollywood, Florida, from August 2024 to June 2025, records show.
Meanwhile, the Inspector General said his office continues to probe the sheriffs’ use and abuse of state procurement credit cards and other public money on meals at expensive restaurants and travel, noting it represents “a lack of respect for the public resources extended to them.”
Still, it’s not just free-spending sheriffs that are to blame, but also the Legislature and the governor, who have used faulty budgeting practices that encourage overspending, according to the report by the state watchdog.
“The OIG (Office of Inspector General) believes, as it does for all governmental entities, that sheriffs should only pay for meals and travel expenses that are tied to a written policy that limits such expenses to an appropriate public standard,” notes the report by Shapiro, the state Inspector General. “The OIG is still reviewing this matter.
Unwarranted windfall: Tibbits-Nutt, whose rocky tenure as the Bay State’s transportation czar was marred by multiple screwups, walked away with nearly $100,000 for no work during a 10-week transition period
By Colman M. Herman
Monica Tibbits-Nutt, the state’s now former, controversy-plagued transportation secretary, walked away last fall with a sweetheart deal to end all sweetheart deals.
Over a so-called two-and-a-half-month transition period, Gov. Maura Healey’s administration shelled out $99,000 in salary and benefits to Tibbits-Nutt for literally no work after she stepped down as secretary of the Department of Transportation.
Tibbits-Nutt abruptly quit what she once described as her “dream job” last October after less than two years on the job. Her annual salary was $206,489.
No explanation was offered for Tibbits-Nutt’s departure. But it was certainly no state secret that Healey had become fed up with her screw-up after screw-up that soured the governor on her big time.
