Funeral homes to be paid for coroner work

As Kootenai County’s population has increased, so has the number of homicides, suicides and other deaths unattended by a doctor.

For years, Kootenai County’s two major funeral homes removed bodies for free, only occasionally reimbursed by the county for supplies and body bags or for transporting corpses to and from Spokane for autopsies.

Now, county commissioners have agreed to pay the funeral homes $1,000 a month for their services. The county will also provide body bags on an as-needed basis.

“When our population was not growing like it is now, doing that occasionally for the county was not a real problem,” said Bruce English, owner of English Funeral Chapels.

“With the increase in population, it’s become more and more and we’re having to do it more often.”

Though the funeral homes profit on any funerals or services they handle as a result, both English and Yates Funeral Homes owner Dexter Yates said many people have pre-arranged services with other funeral homes.

The cost of doing business has also increased, English said.

County Coroner Robert West said owners of the two funeral homes approached him earlier this year and proposed a fee of $125 to $150 for each body removal.

They later agreed on a rate of $1,000 a month, with the funeral homes alternating months that each is responsible for the coroner’s calls.

Kootenai County commissioners also suggested the coroner acquire a large SUV and that his office do the work on its own, but West said it wouldn’t be as easy as it sounds.

“We would have to have two people on call 24-7,” he said. To cover those shifts, West said he would need a staff of four to six people.

Right now, the coroner’s office consists of West and a deputy coroner.

“We would shortly arrive at a budget amount that’s considerably in excess of $100,000,” he said.

Yates said he has two Chevy Suburbans and two vans. There have been times, he said, when every vehicle was being used and a call came in with a report of another death.

At times, the funeral homes have to call each other for backup.

West said his office is appreciative of the work Yates and English have done in the past.

He said the agreement between the county and the funeral homes formalizes the relationship.

“If both funeral homes said we’re not doing this anymore … this amount of money we’re talking about in this contract would be a drop in the bucket,” compared to what equipment and staffing would cost the county, he said.

English said the request for compensation isn’t about making a profit, just covering expenses. “It’s just gotten to the point, with what we’re having to pay our staff and the cost of insurance and everything else, that we just need to be compensated,” he said.