SECTION 172.
The secretary of administration and finance or a designee, in consultation with the chairs of the house and senate committees on ways and means or their designees; the Massachusetts Sheriffs Association, Inc. and the 14 sheriffs, shall develop a funding formula for the sheriffs' offices that includes a system of allocations to the individual offices. The secretary shall retain an independent consultant with demonstrated experience in evaluating measures of the workload of, services offered by and standards for sheriffs' offices and regional jails to develop the funding formula. The formula shall be based, in part, on the number of inmates served. In developing the system of allocations, the secretary shall consider, without limitation: (i) accurate data for each facility and the operational goals and needs for each facility; (ii) the geographic size and location of each sheriff's counties; (iii) costs per inmate and recidivism rates; (iv) the availability of and access to inmate re-entry programs and resources; (v) institutional performance with respect to clearly defined goals and metrics; (vi) the availability of federal funding mechanisms; (vii) costs attributed to inmate health care; (viii) the availability of funds obtained from the civil process divisions; and (ix) the overall revenue available to each sheriff's office, including state, federal and other funding sources.
The secretary shall submit a report detailing, without limitation: the funding formula, clearly defined goals and metrics for the number of inmates served, recommendations on strategies to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of taxpayer dollars and any other recommendations to promote efficiency and effectiveness within the sheriffs' offices. The report shall be filed with the chairs of the house and senate committees on ways and means not later than March 1, 2016.