Worcester County’s sheriff bucked the federal government company pattern of utilizing a state-issued bank card for bills.
The workplace of Worcester County Sheriff Lewis Evangelidis spent zero {dollars} on a procurement card, or P-Card, in fiscal 2025, which their chief monetary officer advised the Herald has been the coverage on the division for greater than a decade.
In line with the Sheriff’s Director of Communications, Eric Eisner, “the Sheriff and his administration do not authorize P-cards for anyone in the department, including the Sheriff himself.”
This isn’t to say the workplace doesn’t sometimes must spend cash on journey or lodging, he advised the Herald. Nevertheless, since nobody within the sheriff’s workplace is issued a state bank card or makes purchases on them, all bills are submitted to the sheriff’s monetary employees for evaluation and reimbursement.
Managing bills this manner, the Herald was advised, permits for tighter controls of what’s charged to the taxpayers and likewise prevents unintentional unauthorized purchases in opposition to a state issued bank card.
The Worcester County coverage is exclusive throughout the county-level regulation enforcement businesses, which spent about $1.5 million in taxpayer funds on their government-issued P-Playing cards in fiscal 2025, in keeping with expense information reviewed by the Herald.
That is half one among a three-part sequence on procurement card, or P-Card, expenditures on the 14 sheriffs’ workplaces in Massachusetts. This half will give attention to analyzing the bottom spending county-level regulation enforcement businesses and the way they managed their use of taxpayer {dollars}.
Excluding Worcester County — which didn’t use a P-Card in any respect — information supplied to the Herald via a freedom of data request filed with the state comptroller’s workplace exhibits that the sheriffs’ workplaces spent a median of $111,227 within the earlier fiscal yr, with a lot of that spent on journey and lodging at accommodations throughout the nation.
The whole P-Card spending, together with taxpayer {dollars} spent by the Massachusetts Sheriff’s Affiliation, got here to $1,512,697.53, the comptroller’s information exhibits.
Whereas some departments selected to make use of their state issued bank cards to rack up a whole bunch of 1000’s in bills, some used them far much less usually.
Berkshire County Sheriff’s Workplace — Sheriff Thomas Bowler
The state’s western-most county can boast the bottom spending on a P-Card by any card-using sheriff’s workplace within the commonwealth, at simply $12,237.51.
Brad Little, Superintendent of the Berkshire County Sheriff’s Workplace, advised the Herald that their “preferred method of making purchases and payments is through our traditional purchase order system with registered state vendors/state contracts.”
“When we implemented the P-Card, we were very mindful that it needed strict internal controls. The primary use of this card for our office is to book flights and hotels for trainings that involve companies and business’ not currently approved as state vendors,” Little stated.
This low-spending workplace paid principally for journey and lodging in fiscal 2025, with three costs of $1,865.36 made in August of 2024 at a Marriott owned property in Nashville, Tennessee.
Their account additionally exhibits two costs of $548 on the Harborview Lodge on Martha’s Winery and a pair for $243.39 on the Liberty Lodge in Boston.
Nantucket County Sheriff’s Workplace — Sheriff James Perelman
The Nantucket sheriff’s card was used for little or no journey — simply $370 and $2,147 value of costs within the dataset might be conceivable chalked as much as airfare and lodging — and didn’t splurge on meals both, spending simply $1,010.42 over the course of fiscal 2025.
Among the many largest bills charged in opposition to Nantucket’s P-Card account have been $6,913 spent with Hy-Line Cruises — the corporate that operates the Nantucket and Martha’s Winery Ferries — and $4,856.07 spent over six transactions at Don Allen Ford of Nantucket.
In whole in fiscal 2025, the island division spent $38,534.90 on their P-card.
Bristol County Sheriff’s Workplace — Sheriff Paul Heroux
The county closest to Rhode Island spent $41,471.16 on their P-card account in fiscal 2025, with a couple of third of that spent on journey and lodging.
Bristol County spent $7,622.68 with journey businesses, an extra $2,867.19 straight with lodge chains, $2,066.04 on airfare, and $581.65 on meals in fiscal 2025.
Different giant bills embody $3,380.00 for entry to the State Home Information Service, $2,816.20 on the Residence Depot in Deadham.
Middlesex Sheriff’s Workplace — Sheriff Peter Koutoujian
The Middlesex County Sheriff’s Division spent nearly half of their 2025 P-card bills on lodging, totaling $28,039.72 for accommodations in Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Nevada, Ohio, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Washington D.C. and the Bay State,
Sending the Sheriff or their employees to these locations price the taxpayers $24,775.25 in airfare.
One other important buy was $3,500.00 for the 2025 Massachusetts Convention for Girls. In whole, the workplace racked up $65,910.45 in costs over the course of the fiscal yr.
Plymouth County Sheriff’s Workplace — Sheriff Joseph McDonald, Jr.
Of the $67,941.47 expensed in opposition to the P-Card assigned to the Plymouth Sheriff’s Workplace in 2025, $5,178.03 of it was on airfare and journey businesses, with an extra $14,722.80 spent on lodging at accommodations in Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Texas.
The Plymouth-assigned card doesn’t seem to have been used to buy any meals.
Massive purchases made in 2025 embody $1,912.50 for Udemy on-line coursework, $1,018.00 for a brand new Ok-9 chew swimsuit, and a complete of $10,833.93 value of purchases by way of Amazon.
That is half one in a 3 half sequence.
