Jon Johnson File Photo: Aerial shot of the Graham County Courthouse. Greenlee County Sheriff Tim Sumner’s lawsuit against the Greenlee County BOS was moved to Graham County and adjudicated by a Maricopa County Judge in a Phoenix courtroom. Sumner lost his case but has filed a notice of appeal.
Sheriff seeks continued litigation and costs to the county
By Jon Johnson
CLIFTON – Greenlee County Sheriff Tim Sumner has filed a notice of appeal regarding his lawsuit loss against the Greenlee County Board of Supervisors.
Maricopa Judge John Hannah ruled in March regarding the case of Tim Sumner v. Greenlee County Supervisors Richard Lunt, David Gomez, and Ron S. Campbell in favor of the Board. Sumner sued the BOS after it refused to honor his increasing monetary demands. Sheriff Sumner incorrectly believed Arizona Revised Statute 11-444 (specifically subsections (B) and (C) gave him the authority to decide how much money his office needed. Judge Hannah informed Sumner of his mistake and wrote, “Those provisions are not hidden powers that elected county sheriffs have overlooked for the past hundred years. They are obsolete 19th-century accounting rules superseded by more recent enactments that serve the same purposes more efficiently.”
Despite being preemptively advised the Court of Appeals had already addressed the issue in a parallel case from Cochise County in 1989 and ruled in favor of the board of supervisors in that case law, Sumner still decided to appeal, after all, he’s not paying for his attorneys, Greenlee County is. The county is also paying for the attorneys for the BOS, and, so far, the running total of court costs due to Sumner’s lawsuit is nearly $300,000.
Both sides previously gave oral arguments for judgment during a hearing at the Superior Court East Court Building in Phoenix on Jan. 26.
In their oratory, attorneys for the BOS advised of the severe ramifications that could occur across the state had the judge ruled against them. The defendants asserted that Sheriff Sumner brought the lawsuit not because he is underfunded as the Sheriff’s Office is the highest-funded department in Greenlee County – by more than $2 million per year – but they contended Sumner filed the case so he and any other sheriff in Arizona’s other counties “can have unchecked power to spend county taxpayer funds without heeding modern budgetary requirements.”
According to the 2020 Census, Greenlee County has 9,563 residents, making it Arizona’s least populous county. The Greenlee County Sheriff’s Office budget for fiscal year 2024 is nearly $5.4 million, which is about 30 percent of Greenlee County’s general fund.
In his ruling, Judge Hannah cited case law advising it was a question of law for the court to decide. He then wrote that Sumner was “fundamentally” wrong in his assessment regarding Arizona Revised Statute 11-444 and sided with the BOS.
“The Sheriff fundamentally misreads the statute,” Judge Hannah wrote. “Section 11-444 does not empower the Sheriff to override the Board’s decisions about how much money the Sheriff can spend and what he can spend it on. It does not make the Sheriff the final authority as to what expenses are “necessary” for the performance of his duties. Read as a whole and in the context of related statutes, the statute is not a grant of authority of any kind, financial or otherwise. A different statute, A.R.S. section 11-411, sets out the Sheriff’s “powers and duties” – law enforcement, jail management, and service of process. Section 11-444 merely provides process instructions, for budgeting and payment of expenses that a sheriff incurs in the course of exercising those powers and carrying out those duties. The Board – not the Sheriff – makes the fiscal policy decisions that section 11-444 implements.”
Judge Hannah went on to advise that a variety of statutes support the Board having final fiscal authority and that “the Sheriff has none, even if the Sheriff regards a particular expenditure as necessary for the exercise of his law enforcement authority. The powers of a county shall be exercised only by the board of supervisors or by agents and officers acting under its authority and authority of law.”
According to the Greenlee County Board of Supervisors’ agenda for Tuesday, March 21, the board is set to discuss the matter of the appeal during an executive session of the meeting.
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