Coroner to commissioners: Office still needed
Discussions have restarted about the need for a coroner’s office.
Coroner Earl Piper plans to retire this year from his main job at Bond-Mitchell Funeral Home, and that is where he has been taking bodies involved in coroner cases when the need arises. He currently uses a room in his home as his office.
Deputy Coroner Rob Ayers went to the county commissioners office in early November to discuss the need for an office and work space. President Dave Anderson brought the topic up at the Nov. 20 commissioners meeting.
“It’s time for us to provide our county coroner with a place to work,” he said.
“We’re going to have to do something and we need to do it fairly quickly. We should have done it in 2019 and we did not.”
Both Ayers and Piper estimate a 40-foot-by-40-foot pole barn-type building with a concrete floor would be sufficient, which would include a half-bathroom and office space, along with an area to store refrigeration units and do autopsies.
Anderson said the county might have to borrow money to cover the construction of the new work space. Commissioner Diana Biddle said the first step to borrowing money would be to put out a request for proposals from engineering firms.
The county’s remonstrance level is at least $5.5 million. That’s the most a unit of government would spend without triggering an opportunity for taxpayers to oppose the spending.
“We don’t need a $5 million building,” Ayers said.
“No, you’re not getting one,” Biddle responded.
“I understand that, but we don’t need $100,000 building either,” Ayers added.
Brown County Highway Superintendent Mike Magner suggested the county could duplicate the metal storage building near the Law Enforcement Center. It’s 40 by 56 feet, so the new coroner’s office would be smaller. The total cost for that storage building was $42,256.
“I can already envision how the space works, and 40 by 40 would be the perfect size,” Piper said.
The only requirement for a coroner’s office is that it have a ventilation system. State code also requires a system be in place to handle the removal of hazardous waste, Piper said.
“There’s all kinds of waste removal companies out there that you can get in contact and get that taken care of, so in that sense, it’s not unlike a way a funeral home would operate,” he said.
Piper said he would check with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management to make sure he’s not missing any other requirements for a space like that.
“You’re going to see anywhere from structured facilities like Marion County would be, down to individuals who are operating out of mini-warehouse storage areas. That’s what you’re going to find,” Piper said of other county coroner offices.
“I’ve just been fortunate enough because I’ve worked with the funeral home for 28 years that I was able to provide that facility. All of this is kind of coming to a head because I’m starting to get older and I want to eventually retire. Once I do, it’s a corporate-owned facility, and they don’t want strangers running around their facility.”
One possible location for a new building would be near the Law Enforcement Center, which would not require the county to purchase additional property.
“I am in my last term and I’m not going to run again. Eventually, you will have a new coroner who will have to have a place to operate anyway,” Piper said.
Talks about moving Community Corrections restart
Talks between the Brown County Commissioners and the Nashville Town Council about moving the county’s Community Corrections office to the Nashville Police Department have restarted, commissioner Diana Biddle reported Nov. 20.
“That was on the table last year, then their (Community Corrections executive) director left and then people changed,” Biddle said.
Former executive director Barbara Osborn left earlier this year. Community Corrections recently put out a request for applications to fill the job. “It does require a pretty specific set of training. The huge thing is grant writing, because that entire office is funded with their grants,” Biddle said.
She said she would start talking with town council President Jane Gore and NPD Chief Ben Seastrom about moving Community Corrections to the police department, which would give Community Corrections more security and space and put people in that building all day long, filling excess office space.
A trade of services had been mentioned, like the county providing the NPD with IT help. Nothing was decided.
Last year, the county also talked about moving the parks and rec office to Veterans Hall if Community Corrections were to move out. Community Corrections is currently in the basement of Veterans Hall, which is at Deer Run Park. Parks and rec’s current office is a modular home at Deer Run which has mold and flooding problems.
“We have some needs I think we can address by relocating that office and using that Community Corrections office space for something else,” Biddle said Nov. 20.
At the Dec. 11 commissioners meeting, Biddle said the Community Corrections office could also be used as an absentee voting location. Clerk Kathy Smith said the election board had not yet had the opportunity to visit the site and she asked to report findings at the Jan. 8 commissioners meeting.
Election board President Amy Kelso said she would like to see absentee voting moved there permanently to prevent future costs of notifying voters of another location change for future elections. Kelso added that if Parks and Rec eventually moves into that space, it could be possible for the two to share it around election time.
The former absentee voting location was the small meeting room in the County Office Building, but that space has been taken over by the county’s IT department.
