Administration snub leaves sheriff mystified

Crafting a state budget is supposed to be a dispassionate exercise in number-crunching, but for Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, the process got downright personal this year.

During a press conference yesterday, Healey said that she was miffed at Middlesex County Sheriff James V. DiPaola, because he was late in submitting his spending proposal for the coming fiscal year, never sat down at a November planning meeting, and was uncommunicative in general.

So Healey decided to allot the six other sheriffs departments in the state a 2.1 percent increase in funding over current year and no increase whatsoever to DiPaola's department, she told reporters.

''Perhaps now we will bring Sheriff DiPaola to the table," Healey said. ''This is not punishment. We had nothing to base our decision to give him more or less money."

Romney quipped, ''We decided zeroing him out wouldn't be fair."

DiPaola issued a lengthy statement in response to Healey yesterday, saying he was ''completely startled by the tone and content of the lieutenant governor's comments."

''With respect to the charge that the Middlesex sheriff's office has not 'come to the table' and has not communicated our needs to the governor's office, we would simply say that is not true," DiPaola said. ''We have had a regular dialogue with the Office of Administration and Finance throughout the year. Our discussions with the budget analysts seemed productive and cooperative."

Healey said her decision was not solely based on DiPaola's failure to show up to a Nov. 16 meeting in the State House, at which all sheriffs were invited to provide their budget requests. She said it was also based on concerns about the safety and hygiene of prisoners in Middlesex County jails, concerns that first arose during an August visit to the Cambridge Jail last year.

Cambridge Jail is filled with cancer-causing asbestos that is flaking off the walls and is said to pose a serious health risk to 320 inmates, as well as hundreds of state employees. The county also maintains an antiquated house of correction in Billerica that is undergoing a major renovation project costing roughly $50 million.

Speaking of the cleanliness and safety of the Cambridge jail, Healey said: ''I think that with those questions unanswered and with his unwillingness to come to the table like every other sheriff did in the Commonwealth to discuss what his budget needs were for the coming year, I think we made the only decision we could."

DiPaola said he was mystified by Healey's comments on the state of his jails as well.

''Today's comments regarding the hygiene of our facility, the safety of our facility are baseless and surprising," he said. ''The Middlesex sheriff's office is inspected and audited annually by the Department of Correction, which is overseen by the governor's administration. During the last DOC audit report of June 8, 2004, the auditors agreed 'that the conditions found in the kitchen and common areas (such as halls) were good to excellent. The sanitation level in most cells was also good.' "

The administration's budget proposals rarely go unchanged by the Legislature, where DiPaola served two terms as a Democratic representative from Malden before being elected sheriff in 1996.