Howard Buffett, the 66-year-old son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, has a long history of donating millions to law enforcement agencies while serving as a part-time, unofficial member of some of them.
But recently, his attempts to become a certified officer in Illinois—without completing the required training or sitting for a written examination—cost the executive director of the state’s board that regulates officers his job, according to a new report from The Office of Executive Inspector General for the Agencies of the Governor.
The report, first shared by the Associated Press, details how Buffett and the Macon County Sheriff’s Office, which he was working for as an undersheriff, attempted to get him a waiver to be certified as a part-time officer by the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board in 2018. That would allow him to use his previous law enforcement training elsewhere in Illinois and become a certified part-time officer there, with many of the same powers as a full-time officer.
The request came after Buffett had donated $15 million to the board in 2017 to build a training facility, as well as another more than $500,000 to get the facility up and running, according to the report. It also came after the executive director of the board, Brent Fischer, had previously made “requests” to Buffett for money—including asking for a $10,000 donation to support their canine program.
On Jan. 11, 2019, three hours after acknowledging the $10,000 donation from Buffett’s foundation, Fischer granted Buffett’s waiver, despite the fact that the billionaire was over 100 hours short of needed training, had never sat for a certification exam, and had never entered or completed a formal police academy. In February, Fischer gave Buffett a physical certification that he had specially printed up for him, the report states.
Fischer, whose past law enforcement experience includes leading the Adams County Sheriff’s Office for 17 years, said he believed it was understood that the certification was a symbolic gesture or honorary degree for “all [Buffett] has done for law enforcement,” according to the report.
An unnamed employee who said he was present when Buffett was given the certificate told investigators he believes Fischer said something to the effect of “here is something you can put on your wall” when he gave the certification to Buffet. The unnamed employee said he knew about the vast sums Buffett has given law enforcement and said that if giving Buffett a “BS paper to throw on the wall” was a thank you, he had no problem with that.
But shortly after receiving the certification, the Macon County Sheriff’s Office’s website listed Buffett as a certified officer. In Feb. 2020, Buffett used the certification to apply for a waiver to join the Christian County Sheriff’s Office, according to the report. He also sent the certification to the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office in Arizona, where he had previously been serving as a volunteer deputy since 2013.
The Christian County Sheriff’s Office, which still lists Buffett as an undersheriff on their website, did not respond to a request for comment. The Cochise County Sheriff’s Office also did not respond to a request for comment.
The Inspector General report, made public this week, concluded in August that Fischer engaged in “mismanagement and malfeasance” when he issued the certification to Buffet. While investigators did not find evidence Fischer personally benefited from the donations, they concluded that Buffett’s payments to the sheriff's office “provided a basis” for why Fischer gave Buffett the certification he wasn’t qualified for.
In September, Fischer, who did not respond to a request for comment, was fired from the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board.
In a Nov. 4 letter responding to the investigation, Fischer wrote that it failed to state any rules or statutes that he broke. He said it was never mentioned to him that Buffett would use the certification to run for office or serve as a sworn officer. Rather, he said, he believed the certification was an “expression of gratitude” for Buffett’s gifts to various law enforcement groups.
Buffett did not respond to a request for comment, and neither did the Howard G. Buffett Foundation. A member of Buffett’s family quickly hung up the phone when reached by The Daily Beast and did not respond to a subsequent text message.
In an interview with investigators from the Inspector General’s office in July, Buffett said he didn’t recall Fischer telling him the certification wasn’t authentic.
Buffett told investigators it wasn’t until May, when an article revealing his intention to run for Sheriff of Macon County was published, that he received word from Fischer and others that he wasn’t eligible to run because his certification he’d received in January was only “ceremonial,” according to the report.
Buffett told investigators he ended his run for sheriff and later mailed his certification back. He said that if he’d known that the certification wasn’t authentic, he wouldn’t have ever tried to use it or run for office.
According to the report, Buffett said he was concerned about the optics of everything and didn’t want anyone to believe he was looking for a return on the millions he has donated to law enforcement agencies across the country and in Illinois, his home state, over the years. Buffett started his charitable organization in 1999 and has provided over $143 million in support of public safety, including donations to 115 local law enforcement agencies and fire departments.
Buffett has made news for his law enforcement activities before.
In 2019, the Phoenix New Times published an extensive investigation into his personal “border war” in Arizona. The report included a photo of Buffett and two “friends” posing with handguns, and alleged that the billionaire’s son had armed a “private volunteer group” and funded “the chemical defoliation of a substantial portion of the county’s border,” an operation that was marketed as a “grasslands restoration” project.
The New Times report further alleged that Buffett had amassed influence over local law enforcement by showering them with millions of dollars in “gifts and grants.”
Buffett’s namesake foundation had nearly $500 million in 2019, according to the most recently available filings. That year, the organization doled out more than $200 million to dozens of recipients, including the Macon County Sheriff’s Office, the Center to Combat Human Trafficking, and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol.
At the same time, the foundation received roughly $193 million from Warren Buffett, its sole contributor that year.
Buffett previously served as sheriff of Macon County, Illinois, between 2017 and 2018.
Buffett’s work in Macon County—where he donated millions to open a drug treatment center and law enforcement training facility—was the subject of a glowing Sunday Today show segment in 2018, featuring such hard-hitting questions as: “You have a big heart. Do you know where your big heart comes from?”
Buffett credited his mother, and said he wished he had “gone to the police academy” in his twenties.
An outdated department website page still lists him as undersheriff, saying he assists with “external training for Taser instructors, K-9 officers, DUI/DRE officers and drug interdiction officers.” It also claims he is certified by the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board and had completed over 5,200 service-duty hours and 111 weapons qualifications under the direction of four sheriff offices in Illinois and Arizona, “meeting both states' certifications requirements.”
However, Jim Root, the current sheriff of Macon County, told The Daily Beast Buffett resigned from the office in March 2020.
Root said he could not answer questions about Buffett’s certification request in 2018 because he was not sheriff at the time. “His status with our department was under a prior administration,” he said.
Root, who said he’s served the Macon County Sheriff’s Office for 25 years, said he worked under Buffett after the previous Sheriff Tom Schnieder retired in 2017 and Buffett was his boss on an interim basis.
He recalled Buffett being hands off as a sheriff, particularly with Root’s emergency management department. “He had no background in that and didn’t even bother coming over,” he said.
Root said he’d read the Inspector General report, but said he could not comment on any potential wrongdoing by Fischer, Buffett or the Sheriff’s Office at the time that Buffett’s certification was processed.
“Mr. Buffett's a nice guy. I like the guy. He’s done a lot for our community,” he said. “But there’s only so much I can stand. And any type of impropriety is not one that I’m willing to put my neck on the line for.”
