Disputes over the relationship between the county board of commissioners and a sheriff may seem arcane to those in many states, but in some parts of the country the issues still spawn heated litigation. Such was the case in a recent decision of the New Hampshire Supreme Court involving Rockingham County. Daniel Linehan, “the High Sheriff” of Rockingham County, filed a petition for declaratory judgment seeking a ruling that the Rockingham County Commissioners had impermissibly interfered with his constitutional, statutory, and common law authority to administer the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Department. In particular, Linehan argued that (1) the Commissioners should have no power to establish county-wide personnel policies and procedures which set the terms and conditions of employment of non-deputy personnel; (2) the Commissioners should have no authority to make line-item transfers within the Sheriff’s budget and from the Sheriff’s budget into the budget of another County department; (3) the Commissioners should have no authority to institute a county-wide spending freeze, which freezes expenditures from the Sheriff’s budget; (4) the Sheriff should have no authority to set the standards for the purchase of non-law enforcement goods and services for the operation of the Sheriff’s Department.
The Court rejected all of Linehan’s arguments. The Court started with the proposition that the Sheriff’s duties and responsibilities, “unless expressly prescribed by the state constitution, are not immutable or exclusive, but are subject to legislative alteration and control. To the extent the non-law enforcement functions of the Sheriff’s office were part of the Sheriff’s common law duties, the Legislature has modified these responsibilities by vesting the authority to manage and control county affairs in the County government.”
In the eyes of the Court, these non-law enforcement responsibilities included overall day-to-day County financial management and control of County assets and liabilities. This included the ability of the commissioners to set the terms and conditions of employment of non-deputy employees, and as well establishing a budget for the Sheriff’s office. In the eyes of the Court, the County is the agency endowed with the authority to determine the amount of taxes to be raised for County operations and how these funds will be appropriated. It necessarily possesses the power to determine in its discretion how the County moneys are to be allocated among the officials and departments competing for them.”
The Court ruled that the only area not directly relating to the provision of law enforcement services over which the Sheriff had exclusive control were the terms and conditions of employment of deputy sheriffs. Under a state statute, the Sheriff had express statutory authority to hire and fire deputy sheriffs.
Linehan v. Rockingham County Commissioners, 2004 WL 1586246 (N.H. 2004).