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Coroner reports higher caseload, requests volunteers as office runs short-staffed
Summary
The coroner told the committee February and March caseloads included several heart-, lung- and cancer-related deaths and that the office has a three-person rotating deputy-coroner setup and needs additional volunteers to help with case work.
The county coroner reported to the Public Safety Standing Committee on April 8 that February and March brought an increased caseload and that the coroner’s office is short-staffed.
The coroner reported nine cases in February with ages ranging from 22 to 94; six were reported as heart-related deaths and one as a cancer case pending autopsy toxicology. For March the coroner reported 14 cases with ages noted in the transcript as mostly older decedents (the speaker gave ages in the 80s–90s range), including heart-, lung- and cancer-related deaths, one influenza A death with contributing conditions, two dementia-related deaths and one fall-related traumatic death. Several cases were pending toxicology.
The coroner told the committee the office now has three people covering deputy-coroner duties and that the workload is heavy. The coroner asked if anyone in the community would volunteer to assist; the coroner noted that the pay is on-call recall basis and not a regular salaried position.
Why it matters: a short-staffed coroner’s office can lengthen case processing, autopsy and death-notification timelines; the coroner asked the committee’s help in identifying volunteers willing to serve on call.
The committee did not take formal action; members acknowledged the staffing gap and discussed the difficulty of recruiting on-call coroners in recent years.
