What's a fair 4-way split for a $26 million medical examiner's facility? Some say not 25%.

Jim Little, Pensacola News Journal
·4 min read

Escambia County commissioners are questioning the relocation of the District 1 Medical Examiner’s Office to Santa Rosa County after the other counties in the district balked at an equal split for the cost of a new morgue.

The District 1 Medical Examiner’s Office serves the four-county area of Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa and Walton counties.

It currently operates in Pensacola out of a leased office at Ascension Sacred Heart Hospital in a cramped 4,000-square-feet facility, as well as office space on Airport Boulevard.

Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Deanna Oleske has advocated for a new facility since she was appointed to the job in 2020.

Dr. Deanna Oleske, District 1 chief medical examiner, gives statistics during the State of the Medical Examiner District presentation at the Santa Rosa County Administrative Center Board Room in Milton on Tuesday, May 3, 2022. Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa and Walton counties are hashing out a fair cost split for a new Medical Examiner facility, which could cost up to $26 million.

The State Legislature has approved a total of $750,000 for a new facility, including a $500,000 appropriation that Gov. Ron DeSantis approved when he signed the latest state budget last week.

The four-county governments oversee the office through a nonprofit corporation called District One Medical Examiner Support Inc. or DOMES.

DOMES estimates the cost for a new morgue will be up to $26 million.

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Escambia County, as the most populated of the four counties, makes up more than half of the cases the medical examiner’s office handles. When DOMES was created in the wake of a legal battle with the previous medical examiner, a verbal agreement was made that the medical examiner’s office would be relocated to Santa Rosa County to provide a more central geographic location for the office.

As part of the agreement to relocate the facility, it was agreed Escambia County would pay less to fund the operations of the office and the new facility to be funded with an equal 25% contribution from all four counties.

Currently, funding for the office is split based on the caseload from each of the counties. DOMES is proposing an updated formula for the coming year that would have Escambia County pay 47% of the operating cost, Santa Rosa County pay 18%, Okaloosa County pay 25% and Walton County pay 10%.

Dr. Deanna Oleske, District 1 chief medical examiner, speaks during the State of the Medical Examiner District presentation at the Santa Rosa County Administrative Center Board Room in Milton on Tuesday, May 3, 2022. Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa and Walton counties are hashing out a fair cost split for a new Medical Examiner facility, which could cost up to $26 million.

Escambia County Public Safety Director Eric Gilmore, who has been representing the county on the DOMES board, told the commission on Thursday that originally the new office was going to be built at a Santa Rosa County commerce park with direct interstate access.

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“When they were going to put it in the commerce park, Santa Rosa was going to foot the bill for the land and everything,” Gilmore said. “That was going to be part of their contribution to the facility is what is going to be. Since all that's changed, they are looking at two pieces of property somewhere along Avalon (Boulevard) close to the interstate.”

As part of the change, DOMES was requesting $500,000 from each county to help fund the purchase of the land, and all of the counties have committed to contributing the $500,000 to fund the land purchase, according to DOMES Director Dan Schebler, who texted Gilmore during the meeting.

However, County Administrator Wes Moreno said that his understanding is that so far Escambia County is the only one of the four counties to have committed funding to the new facility. There remains a question over cost-sharing for the construction of the new facility.

County Attorney Alison Rogers said the “eastern counties” have questioned the 25% split for the construction cost.

Commissioner Robert Bender said he’s tried floating a compromise proposal to other commissioners at a Florida Association of Counties conference to have a split of 30% each from Escambia and Okaloosa counties and 20% each from Santa Rosa and Walton counties.

“Walton was hell-bent on a 10 to 12% number for the facility unless we put it in DeFuniak (Springs),” Bender said.

A majority of the commission agreed that if the other counties didn’t want to equitably share the cost for a new facility, the status quo of keeping the operations in Escambia County can remain in place and that Bender’s compromise was the lowest they were willing to go to split the construction cost.

The discussion Thursday was spurred by an $800,000 budget increase request, which in turn was a result of the medical examiner’s caseload more than doubling since 2020.

If the request is approved, the operating budget of the office would be $5.6 million for the coming year.

Most of the increased case count is attributable to fentanyl overdose deaths.

"So, let's talk about fentanyl. I had a 454% increase in fentanyl deaths compared to 2020. That's 300 people. It's everywhere," Oleske said during a presentation in May. "Fentanyl is the most common drug that we're detecting in our deceased. It's not alcohol."

Jim Little can be reached at jwlittle@pnj.com and 850-208-9827.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Escambia questions relocation of Medical Examiner to Santa Rosa