A proposal to increase the salary of the Genesee County coroner would coincide with extra duties, including the transport of deceased individuals when necessary.
A resolution for this measure would add a $200 payment for roundtrip costs of transporting someone who has died and a coroner has been requested. This change and additional stipend are being proposed as an amendment to a local law, County Attorney James Wujcik said.
County Manager Matt Landers elaborated on how the situation came to light.
“This is something that was brought to our attention from communications, law enforcement, public health, as a concern from the coroners underneath them, where we would have resources tied up at the scene for a while while we're waiting for transports, where dispatches would be going through a list and trying to get people to come,” Landers said during Wednesday’s Ways & Means meeting. “And so it was tying up resources. And it was especially the time when we had difficulty with our own resources as they are. We tried an interim step first, Tammi worked with public health to issue an RFP twice. Two times they issued it with hope to find a dedicated transport service vendor that would be doing this. We did not get any responses.
“So after that, the next option was, well, coroners are already there. Can we have them just do the transport,” he said.
There’s been an increased demand for this unscheduled service, he said, and “it really was becoming a challenge to acquire those services.” With an established fee, coroners will know the payment up front when a call comes in, he said.
There will be a public hearing about “providing additional duties and increasing the salary of the Genesee County coroner” next year. It will be at 5:30 p.m. Jan. 4 in the Legislative Chambers at the Old Courthouse, 7 Main St., Batavia.
This is for situations when a coroner has been called to provide the service. When asked by Legislator Marianne Clattenburg how often this has happened, Assistant County Manager Tammi Ferringer said more than a lot.
"So it's about 40 to 50 cases a year that are transported to the medical examiner,” she said.
Legislative Chairwoman Shelley Stein wanted to know if these bodies would be taken to the funeral home or to the medical examiner's office. Ferringer confirmed it was the latter.
“Thank you. I don’t want to be their delivery service,” Stein said.
Anyone interested in speaking during the public hearing may do so during this time.
UPFATE: The entire resolution to be voted on includes prior local laws from years 2012, 2018 and 2021. It states: A local law amending local law number one of the year 2021, as further amended by local law number five of the Year 2018 and incorporating local law number two of the year 2021 in relation to providing additional duties and increasing the salary of the Genesee County Coroner."
Assistant County Manager Tammi Ferringer further explained that, despite what the above passage states regarding salary, "The coroner’s salary will not increase. The base salary of $2,000, with $100/case and $150/holiday case has been the method of compensation since 2018. This local law does introduce a phone case reimbursement rate of $50/case. By law, certain deaths do not need a coroner to physically respond. However, the coroner may be contacted by a medical facility for consult on the case. This new rate will allow the Coroner to be compensated for their work in these instances."
