Sarah Schirmer is a managing director with PFM’s Management and Budget Consulting practice and Executive Director of PFM’s Center for Justice & Safety Finance (CJSF). Sarah brings to PFM nearly 20 years of experience working in the criminal justice field, with a focus on policy, data analysis and research.
Sarah supports government clients with budget and public safety priorities that bridge policy, finance, and operations including organizational and operational assessments, strategic planning, performance management, and policy and process improvements.
Sarah’s work with criminal justice agencies, local government administrators, and chief financial officers and budget directors spans the country. Since joining PFM, Sarah has worked with police departments in the Northeast and the Southeast; sheriff’s offices and state corrections agencies in the Midwest, West, and South; district attorney’s offices in the South; and budget and finance directors in the mid-Atlantic Region, the South, and the West.
In addition to her local government work, Sarah works with national philanthropic foundations on key questions and issues facing the field. Sarah led a national assessment of indigent defense funding structures and performance measurement, including a 50-state review and analysis of practices in mid-sized and large jurisdictions, and assessed the role of fines and fees in the criminal justice system in three counties and developed plans that would allow the counties to reduce their reliance on them as a source of revenue.
