This story by Clare Shanahan was first published by the Valley News on Sept. 7.
WOODSTOCK — Vermont State Police are investigating the Windsor County Sheriff Department’s finances following an anonymous tip.
The Vermont State Police’s criminal division is involved in the investigation into “a financial matter regarding the sheriff’s office,” spokesperson Adam Silverman confirmed Thursday. The investigation started in mid-August because the division was “asked” to look into it. Silverman declined to provide further details.
As of Friday, Windsor County Sheriff Ryan Palmer said he had not been contacted by Vermont State Police about the investigation but suggested that does not seem to be unusual. He confirmed that he learned about the investigation through media reports.
“I’m not hiding anything. I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t do anything illegal. There’s nothing to hide,” Palmer said in a Friday interview.
Palmer confirmed in an Aug. 29 Facebook post that he was aware of the investigation, denied any “wrongdoing or criminal behavior” and wrote that he understands the “serious nature of the claims and the public concern this may cause.”
Palmer also suggested on Facebook that the tip Vermont State Police received may have been politically motivated.
“I would also note that these complaints were submitted anonymously, as we approach the 2026 election year,” Palmer wrote at the end of his message.
When asked about this comment, Palmer said he did not know if the tip was politically motivated but said, “I guess we’ll have to wait and see, but it is coincidental at best.” He described the timing as “curious.”
Palmer, 38, was first elected as Windsor County’s sheriff in 2022.
He ran as a Democrat and campaigned on a platform of change for the department, which had been run for 40 nearly uninterrupted years by former Sheriff Michael Chamberlain, a Republican.
After winning the Democratic primary against Tom Battista, a longtime veteran of the department, Palmer prevailed again in November with 15,629 votes to Chamberlain’s 9,824. It was the first time Chamberlain faced a challenger in nearly 20 years.
Since his election, Palmer has grown the department both in staffing and coverage area and he has not shied away from spending money to do so.
As of the beginning of 2025, Palmer had 22 full-time and nine part-time deputies, more than doubling his 2022 numbers and had increased patrols from nine to 15 towns, including four in Orange County.
The expansion kicked off as soon as Palmer’s term began.
In the first four months of 2023, Palmer spent $219,000 on five new cruisers and another almost $150,000 on other equipment through a combination of reserve funds, loans and grants, the Valley News reported at the time.
“My goal coming into this was to really change the paradigm and to change the way Vermont sheriff departments operate, because I felt there was a huge void in rural law enforcement and that has obviously been very expensive,” Palmer said of the investment.
In two and a half years under Palmer’s leadership, the Windsor County Sheriff’s Department has undergone two audits, both within the first six months of his term, according to reports filed with the Vermont state auditor. Vermont law requires that sheriff departments be audited by an outside accounting firm once every two years.
The first was a transition audit that primarily looked at money handled by Chamberlain, the former sheriff. The second audit concerned finances from Feb. 1 through June 30, 2023.
From Jan. 31 through June 30, 2023, the amount of money included in the Windsor Sheriff’s Department bank account decreased from just over $1 million to about $550,000, according to the reports. At the same time, the value of vehicles and equipment increased from about $70,000 to over $450,000.
The Department is about to kick off another regularly scheduled state-mandated audit, Palmer noted in the Facebook post.
Palmer has signed the paperwork to authorize the regular audit but it has not formally started, he said Friday. The last two audits each took about a month to complete.
For now, Palmer said he is focused on continuing his work as usual.
“If you look at where things were before I took over to now, I think that we’ve done a lot of good and that’s kind of my focus in moving forward.”
