The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office on Wednesday was placed under budget restrictions by the Board of Supervisors after a new report detailed misspending that county budget officials said could be between $60 million and $80 million over five years.

Supervisors will forward the county's research to the U.S. Attorney's Office for review. That office is conducting a separate abuse-of-power grand-jury probe of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, his employees and others. The U.S. Attorney's Office declined comment.

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Sheriff's interim Chief Deputy Jerry Sheridan blamed many of the problems on an antiquated personnel system, but acknowledged the Sheriff's Office was not sure how much money from a restricted jail-tax fund was improperly used to pay for deputies to work in other areas of the agency. Misspending from that fund was one of the key complaints against the agency, because money from the fund may be used only for specific purposes.

"The $80 million figure, I think, is pure hyperbole, and I thought it was a vicious attempt to make Sheriff Arpaio look like he's a poor manager," Sheridan said in an interview.

The findings could prompt changes in several areas within the Sheriff's Office, including how prisoners are extradited, how inmate property is handled by county employees, and how supervisors and county budget officials provide future oversight.

County Manager David Smith acknowledged top county administrators were partly to blame because of a lack of strict oversight. Deputy County Manager Sandi Wilson, who oversees the county's $2.2 billion budget, said administrators for years have run the county on a "trust policy."

"We trust departments to do the right thing, to follow countywide policies, and then we verify that, to the extent we can, through audits," she said. "But even if we had audits, some of this wouldn't have been caught."

As legal, political and administrative disputes have embroiled the nation's fourth-most-populous county in recent years, county officials said the Sheriff's Office refused to let auditors examine their books on a number of matters.

Wilson maintained her office's estimates of misspending are accurate, but said county officials need additional records from the Sheriff's Office to pin down an exact figure.

"There's going to have to be a lot of explaining to show us that it's significantly less," she said.

Hoping to prevent further misspending, the board starting next month will retroactively monitor transactions from the sheriff's detention fund, the agency's largest pot of money. Inappropriate spending will be charged to the sheriff's general fund, which is not restricted. Also, by October, the board will require all sheriff's officials to verify job assignments to ensure they are being paid from the proper fund. County officials will also hold hearings and ask sheriff's officials to testify about the agency's spending.

County and sheriff's administrators say they are working together to resolve the problems. But the prospect of county administrators overseeing more closely how the Sheriff's Office allocates resources does not sit well with sheriff's officials who have fought county administrators on that for over a year.

Sheriff's documents subpoenaed by the board, court records and other public information helped the county Office of Management and Budget conclude there was abuse of public funds and county policies. Areas affected included:

� Detention funds - The Sheriff's Office spent money restricted to detention operations for functions not allowed by law. That money comes from a general sales tax approved by voters. It is to be used for jail items such as food, detention officers' salaries and equipment. County officials said money from the fund has paid for salaries for deputies working patrol, public-corruption investigations and other assignments. County budget officials believe the $16 million annual discrepancy could go back five years, totaling $80 million.

� County credit cards - Sheriff's officials charged "unusual expenses" to county-issued credit cards. Expenses included thousands of dollars in food; a hotel-room upgrade with a spouse; upgrades to first-class airfare; $5,414 to lodge and entertain officials from Honduras; multiple extradition trips for an employee totaling $62,750; stays at luxury hotels; a $2,215 expense at the Disneyworld Yacht Club Resort; and $1,684 for a portable generator for parade lights on a military tank.

Many of those findings were revealed last summer by an Arizona Republic investigation into credit-card spending by the Sheriff's Office. County officials also noted the Sheriff's Office did not provide some financial records on hotel stays in Belize, Puerto Rico, and $3,030 spent on plane tickets and a resort stay in Honduras. The county recently imposed strict credit-card rules on sheriff's employees, and reported that credit-card charges plummeted.

� Extradition - On average, the Sheriff's Office spends between three and six times more than other jurisdictions for extraditions. County and sheriff's officials will research whether the county could save money by hiring a private firm for out-of-state extraditions, whether the county can contract with airlines or hotels for savings, or other options, to reduce costs.

� Inmate cash - Errors in inmate cash accounts occurred frequently, most often with cash missing. Deficits ranged from $1 to several hundred dollars, and were sometimes inappropriately reimbursed from the detention fund. The county could decide to contract with a vendor to handle inmate property.

� Special funds - Sheriff's officials in some instances got around a countywide capital freeze and procurement rules by spending jail-enhancement funds and money in an anti-racketeering fund. They later backfilled the purchases using detention funds and general-fund money.

� Outside bank accounts - Sheriff's officials banked the jail-enhancement and anti-racketeering funds in outside bank accounts, which prevented county officials from monitoring transactions. Checks were sometimes signed by unauthorized employees, and questionable purchases included a $500 carriage ride. Those accounts recently were closed by county officials, and the money is being banked by the county treasurer.

Sheridan noted that the Sheriff's Office has traditionally had money left over at the end of the fiscal year in both the general fund and the jail fund, indicating it's operating efficiently.

"We don't have a second set of books," he said. "It's not intentional. There's no subversion involved."

Over the next few weeks, the county will work with sheriff's officials to identify an exact amount that must be reimbursed to the sheriff's detention fund, and determine how to pay the fund back.

"We will not harm public safety," supervisors' attorney Tom Irvine said. "But we have to squeeze every penny . . . out of this system while maintaining public safety. It could be very painful for Maricopa County as a whole."

Reporter JJ Hensley contributed to this article.