Massachusetts sheriffs’ incentive pay: how education, longevity, and fitness programs can raise annual compensation

Six-figure base pay, plus add-ons built into payroll rules

Massachusetts’ 14 elected county sheriffs oversee jails and houses of correction and are paid salaries set in state law and periodically adjusted through statewide spending bills. In recent years, their base pay has been supplemented by additional compensation mechanisms commonly used across public-sector workplaces, including education stipends, longevity incentives, and specialty bonuses.

Those add-ons can produce thousands of dollars in extra annual pay for individual sheriffs, depending on the compensation policies in their departments and whether sheriffs are treated as eligible for the same incentives offered to other employees.

Examples of incentives that can apply to sheriffs

Payroll records and department explanations show that, in some counties, sheriffs receive incentive pay that resembles benefits offered to uniformed or administrative staff. In Hampden County, Sheriff Nicholas Cocchi received about $35,000 in additional pay beginning with his second term in 2023, including a nearly $10,000 longevity bonus in one year.

In Barnstable County, Sheriff Donna Buckley received a package of annual add-ons—an education bonus, a clothing allowance, and a longevity incentive—totaling roughly $12,500 per year over her first three years in office, for a combined sum of about $37,500.

In Middlesex County, Sheriff Peter Koutoujian received nearly $20,000 in additional pay since 2023, including a recurring incentive tied to passing an employee fitness exam and separate payments tied to educational credentials.

• Education stipends can reward degrees (such as bachelor’s or master’s degrees) with annual payments.
• Longevity incentives can provide percentage-based or fixed bonuses, even though sheriffs are elected officials with separate career timelines.
• Fitness-based incentives can function like specialty pay, available only if an annual test is completed.
• Clothing allowances can be structured as yearly stipends rather than reimbursements.

Broader budget scrutiny raises new questions about compensation design

The incentive-pay discussion has unfolded alongside wider oversight debates about sheriff department finances. In the 2025 budget cycle, lawmakers publicly challenged the scale of sheriff department overruns and pursued investigations into spending controls, while sheriffs argued that rising labor costs, medical care for incarcerated people, and expenses tied to free phone calls helped drive deficits.

At the center of the dispute is how much discretion sheriffs have in managing operational budgets—and how consistently statewide rules are applied across counties.

Related revenue streams highlight oversight gaps

Separately, sheriffs also operate civil process divisions that collect fees for serving legal documents. A state audit published in 2022 found that, during the audited period, nine sheriff departments failed to transmit required civil process fees to the state in one or more quarters, and the state treasurer’s office lacked a monitoring mechanism to ensure transfers occurred.

What comes next

As Beacon Hill weighs tighter financial oversight of sheriff departments, the structure of compensation—base salaries plus incentive layers—has emerged as a measurable, document-driven area where policy choices can materially affect public payroll costs. Any reforms would likely turn on a fundamental question: which incentives are appropriate for rank-and-file employees, and which—if any—should apply to elected sheriffs.