Escambia commissioners agree to build new medical examiner facility in Santa Rosa County
Escambia County is now on board with a plan to build a new facility for the District 1 Medical Examiner’s Office in Santa Rosa County.
After debating for two years over supporting the move, the Escambia County Board of County Commissioners voted to accept the interlocal agreement that will put the multi-million-dollar facility in a more central location for the four counties that use it.
Escambia commissioners voted unanimously to support the move during last week's board meeting. Commissioner Robert Bender has been working with representatives from the other three counties to make the project happen.
“It is something I've been working on for two years,” Bender said. “Wish we could have gotten it done earlier, but I appreciate all the other county commissioners that I've worked with and bringing something to table and continuing to work on it and the perseverance to get it done.”
The District 1 Medical Examiner’s Office serves the four-county area of Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa and Walton counties. The four county governments oversee the office through a nonprofit corporation called District One Medical Examiner Support Inc. or DOMES.
The new facility will be built next to Santa Rosa County’s new courthouse in the Milton area. At around 20,000 square feet in size and $18 million in cost, the new facility will be smaller and less expensive than the initial proposal.
District 1 Medical Examiner, Dr. Deanna Oleske, supports it.
“It is great to see the approval of the funding agreement by three of the four counties and we look forward to an approval by Santa Rosa County next week," Oleske said. "An up-to-date, stand-alone medical examiner facility is critical to the area to support the criminal justice system, ensure complete, timely and accurate death investigations, and provide credible, objective, truthful and scientifically sound determinations of cause and manner of death to families.”
Escambia County is also going to keep the current medical examiner’s facility at Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola to use as a backup in the event a storm or another problem takes the new facility offline.
“The previous cost was closer to $25 million, so we've saved $7 million on the cost of it, plus we have some funding from the state and I think Senator Broxton is going to request an additional $1.5 million to go toward the project, so I think (Escambia County's) estimated cost is probably about ($4.5 million) and if we get additional state funding then that will be reduced by the prorated amount,” Bender said. “We’ll spend about $20,000 a year to keep the current facility open. We don't plan on using it, but if a hurricane takes the roof off of the new building or something like that, we still have a facility we could operate out of, so we're keeping that until such time it doesn't seem financially feasible.”
Previously: New district morgue planned for Santa Rosa could change counties over cost-sharing dispute
DOMES Board of Directors President and Deputy County Administrator of Operations for Okaloosa County, Craig Coffey, was at the Escambia County meeting to answer questions.
“I think you've saved us millions of taxpayers’ dollars and I think we have a project before you now that has the consensus of everyone that we will still be able to build a quality facility, take care of our residents and taxpayers in their final moments and I can't thank you enough and appreciate your leadership,” Coffey said.
There’s no word yet on when construction of the new facility will start, but the four counties will work together to select a building contractor.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Escambia County agrees to new medical examiner facility in Milton
