The Ashtabula County Board of Commissioners could be faced with huge autopsy expenses in 2010 if the coroner’s office budget is slashed to $230,000, says Richard Mongell, one of two investigators employed by the coroner.

The county has not adopted a permanent budget for the new year, but in a work session Monday, commissioners built a tentative budget that set the coroner’s appropriation at $230,140, which is 30 percent less than what Coroner Dr. Robert Malinowski received in 2009.

Mongell said that at that level of funding, both investigators would have to be cut from the budget, leaving only Malinowski and his deputy, Dr. Pamela Lancaster, to rule on the more than 700 deaths that occur in the county during a typical year.

“Investigators would be hindered tremendously or become nonexistent, depending on how things work out,” Malinowski said.

Last year, the coroner’s office provided 135 “full blown” investigations and assisted with another 133 cases where an attending physician signed off on deaths as being by natural causes. In addition, there were 382 hospice cases, 168 of which required input from the coroner’s office because of broken bones or other issues that had to be evaluated as possible factors in the death.

Lancaster said investigators have a law-enforcement background and approach the scene from a different viewpoint than a medical doctor who responds to a death investigation. There is also the issue of availability. Both she and Malinowski are part time, while the investigators work full time and are on call 24/7.

Without investigators at the front-line to do the screening, Mongell said the coroner and deputy coroner would have to rely more heavily upon autopsy results for a determination.

“There will be no scene investigation, so that body will have to go to Cuyahoga County for an investigation,” Mongell said.

Ashtabula County contracts with the Cuyahoga County Coroner’s Office to provide autopsy services. Last year, the county delayed its fourth-quarter payment on that service in order to avoid layoffs in its coroner’s office. Malinowski said that he has no idea if that payment has been made, but he does know Cuyahoga County won’t be offering the county the same deal it has in the past, which resulted in a savings of about $100 per autopsy.

Mongell said the cost will rise to $1,200 to $1,300 each. The county also will have to pay to transport the corpse to Cleveland, $326.50 one way, by Community Care Ambulance.

Between the price increase and not having investigators to determine the necessity of an autopsy, Mongell said the cost could swell to $500,000 or more annually, a seven-fold increase. Last year, the Cuyahoga County Coroner performed 57 autopsies at $1,100 each for the county.

The coroner’s office will be moving to the Old Courthouse next month, a cost-savings measure. The county has been paying rent to the State Road Occupational Medical Facility for office space. The office will occupy the space formerly used by Information Technology Services, which the commissioners abolished in January.

The economy won’t be enough to pay for the two investigator positions, who Malinowski said are essential for not only doing investigations, but also for entering death-certificate data into the computer. Malinowski said only the coroner, who in Ohio must be a physician, can sign the certificates, but Malinowski admits that he is not compute-literate and depends upon his investigators for that portion of the work.

He hopes to sit down with commissioners in the near future and discuss his final number and how it can be increased to keep his staffing intact, the same issue he faced throughout 2009.

“I’m very, very frustrated,” Malinowski said. “I was frustrated last year, too. It’s hard to say what’s going to happen.”