Richland coroner’s office gets emergency funds as cash shortage threatened autopsies

The Richland County Coroner’s Office won’t have collectors calling.

The county will provide $300,000 to cover a budget shortfall. If the county hadn’t stepped in, the office would not have been able to pay for autopsies, postmortem testing and body transportation services for the next two months, according to Coroner Naida Rutherford.

The emergency funds will ensure that the coroner’s office can “keep servicing the community,” Rutherford said.

At Tuesday’s County Council session, county administrator Leonardo Brown explained that the money will be moved from the county’s general fund to the budget of the coroner’s office to get through the fiscal year, which ends after June.

An unexpected 30% increase in deaths compared to the previous year was mostly to blame for the funding gap, Rutherford said. More deaths means more costs for the coroner’s office.

“We cannot tell people when to die,” Rutherford told council. “It’s not a thing where we can say, ‘Can you wait until the next fiscal year?’”

To explain the dilemma, Rutherford told council that her office had $19,000 left in the budget for autopsies, but the average monthly cost for the procedures is $80,000. The same shortfall applied to other services the office requires.

Coronavirus-related deaths and testing had a minor role in the office’s increased costs, but a rise in deaths by natural causes mostly accounted for the current lack of funds, Rutherford said.

Council members proposed putting upcoming federal funds toward COVID-19 costs at the coroner’s office.

The coroner’s office budget has increased each of the last three years, Brown said. Last year, the coroner’s office received $3.42 million. Budgetary staff will recommend another increase to $3.5 million in June, as the council plans the budget for the 2021-2022 fiscal year, according to Brown.

That recommendation falls short of the $3.9 million Rutherford wants for the office. She told council she hasn’t done any frivolous spending.

“I’m the cheapest person you’ve ever met,” she said.