© The Boston Globe

Byline: Michael G. Bellotti and Joseph D. McDonald

County sheriffs face a long list of issues in operating correctional facilities: drugs, gangs, overcrowding, healthcare, and mental illness, to name a few. But one of their worries shouldn't be keeping a close eye on the local real estate market.

Currently, seven of the state's 14 county sheriffs receive their funding from the state budget. The remaining seven are funded through a convoluted county system that relies on revenue from a tax on real estate transactions.

That unpredictable revenue stream is the reason sheriffs have been asking the state to shift to a better funding mechanism. Governor Deval Patrick has filed legislation that would transfer funding of sheriff's offices in Barnstable, Bristol, Dukes, Nantucket, Norfolk, Plymouth, and Suffolk counties to the state budget.

This legislation provides sheriffs with the accountability tools to oversee their facilities efficiently. Currently in seven counties, sheriffs' operating budgets are subject to the whims of the real estate market; the other seven sheriffs know at the beginning of their fiscal year exactly how much money they can rely on.

Having a correctional facility dependent on the vagaries of the sagging real estate market is akin to it being tied to a financial anchor. For example, Norfolk and Plymouth County sheriff's offices project they will experience 17 percent and 33 percent decreases, respectively, in deeds excise tax funds since 2005, resulting in millions of dollars in lost revenue.

Last year, the plummeting deeds excise tax revenues forced the Norfolk County Sheriff's Office to borrow items such as toilet paper, soap, medication cups, tongue depressors, and saline solution from other sheriff's offices. In addition, the Norfolk County Sheriff's Office was within a few weeks of being shut off by its pharmacy vendor, which provides medication to approximately 68 percent of the inmate population. All this occurred after the Norfolk County Sheriff's Office reduced personnel costs through attrition, layoffs, job freezes, and weeklong furloughs.

The Plymouth County Sheriff's Office was planning a "doomsday budget" last year if the state had not rescued it through a supplemental budget. A correction officer academy would have been postponed; inmate reentry programs designed to stop the turnstile of "catch-and-release" corrections would have been scaled back; GED and anti-domestic violence classes would have been modified or cancelled.

Patrick's legislation would eliminate the guesswork when it comes to planning and implementing sheriff's department budgets. Some adherents of the old form of county government have questioned the feasibility of the plan. But there are precedents for its success.

Little more than a quarter-century ago, county district attorney's offices similarly transferred to the state budget while retaining their autonomy and remaining accountable to the electorate.

With half of the state's duly elected sheriffs already funded by the state budget, there is little reason to believe the remaining seven would be hindered from carrying out their work in the best interest of the public.

These budget reforms should be made for the seven sheriffs still under the county system, regardless of whether the real estate market is good or bad. Concerns about details such as the fate of revenues currently generated independently by sheriff's offices should not be allowed to overshadow the ultimate goal of sound fiscal planning.

In all financial situations, there is a bottom line. In this case, the bottom line is that the current county funding system is no way to run a public safety agency.

Michael G. Bellotti, a Democrat, is the sheriff of Norfolk County. Joseph D. McDonald, a Republican, is the sheriff of Plymouth County.