Bristol County Sheriff Paul Heroux pushed back at state lawmakers who withheld key funding for sheriffs this week in the wake of financial scandals involving two sheriffs in Massachusetts.
Lawmakers said Tuesday they plan to withhold the “majority” of $162 million that Gov. Maura Healey wrote into a multi-billion-dollar bill making its way through the Legislature to close out the books on fiscal year 2025. The cash was earmarked to cover spending by the sheriffs that went over budget, raising “serious questions and concerns,” according to a press release from legislative leaders.
Neither lawmakers nor sheriffs have detailed what expenses the spending overruns included. Heroux said most of the $162 million is “already accounted for with stuff that [legislators] knew about in advance,” including cost-of-living increases sheriffs paid out to correctional officers and no-cost calls for prisoners…