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Autopsies done for the county in Pinellas will cost $800 each, instead of $25. With 267 bodies from Pasco last year, the increase would amount to about $200,000.
By LISA GREENE
© St. Petersburg Times, published July 27, 2001
If you live in Pasco County, don't be surprised if county officials suddenly take much greater interest in your health and well-being.
Because it's likely to cost them a lot more if you die.
That's because Pinellas County has budgeted a dramatic increase in the amount it charges Pasco County for autopsies done in Pinellas: $800 instead of a $25 fee that has been charged since the 1970s.
Pasco officials have yet to study the proposed increase, and they declined to say whether they feel it is justified. But Steve Simon, County Commission chairman, said Pasco may have to accept it.
"We don't have much choice in the matter," Simon said. "Should we go to the other autopsy place? Because I wasn't aware that there was one."
The increase is meant to pay for Pasco's share of a new $13.8-million medical examiner's building. The current building, on Ulmerton Road next to the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, is overcrowded and badly ventilated.
Last year, the office autopsied 267 bodies from Pasco County. With the new fee, 32 times the current one, that many autopsies would cost Pasco $213,600 instead of $6,675.
Pasco also pays an extra $1,000 per autopsy directly to the medical examiner, an amount that has increased every few years. The medical examiner, Dr. Jon Thogmartin, operates an independent office under annual contract to Pinellas and Pasco counties.
The office typically performs autopsies for traumatic or suspicious deaths, such as child fatalities or possible suicides.
Thogmartin told Pinellas commissioners this week that the typical industry autopsy charge is about $2,000. Under the proposal, Pasco's total cost would be $1,800, plus other small fees for such things as body storage and certain blood tests.
James Dates, the Pinellas justice coordination director, said the $25 fee probably doesn't cover Pinellas' operating costs even in the old building.
"It's still a better deal than they could get if they decided, "We're going to have our autopsies done by a private corporation,' or if they built their own," he said.
Mark Woodard, Pinellas budget director, said the county staff calculated Pasco's cost by estimating how much of the proposed building is used for autopsies and how many are done for Pasco. The staff set Pasco's share of the new building at about $2.4-million and estimated what it would cost per autopsy for Pasco to pay that amount over 20 years.
Pinellas' proposed budget for next year sets aside money from the county's Penny for Pinellas sales tax revenue to pay for the building. An exact date to start construction has not been set.