Growth in coroner’s spending draws questions from GOP candidates, demands for records | Idaho Statesman

With the election less than two weeks away, Ada County’s incumbent Democratic coroner is denying a records request from a Republican county commissioner candidate for autopsy reports.

The commissioner candidate, Sharon Ullman, said she filed three requests this month for the autopsy reports to understand why the office’s staff and salaries have grown under Coroner Dotti Owens in a way Ullman thinks are excessive.

Owens took to Facebook this week to defend her decision, calling Ullman’s request politically motivated. “These families have suffered, they are grieving and they deserve my respect, the respect of the county and most definitely don’t deserve to be pulled into anything political EVER!” she wrote in a public post.

Ullman, who served as Ada County commissioner from January 2001 to January 2003 and again from January 2009 to 2013, in particular is scrutinizing the workload of a pathologist whose salary increased from $83,640 in 2013 to $265,302 in 2018, one of her records requests shows.

The reason is simple, Owens said: The pathologist, a physician, went from working part time to full time.

Salaries across the office have increased since Owens took office in January 2015. Owens said she is trying to bring Ada County’s wages in line with other coroners’ offices nationally.

In addition, Owens said, her office has struggled with retention as case loads have increased. “There was kind of a five-year turnover,” she said in a phone interview Thursday.

“We were pulling tons of overtime,” she said. “This isn’t pulling overtime in any other type of position — this is emotionally draining work.”

Between 2016 and 2017, the coroner’s office grew from 18 to 27 employees. Its budget has grown to $2.9 million this fiscal year from $1.8 million in fiscal 2016.

Ullman said she wants to evaluate whether the coroner’s case load justifies the increases. “Her budget has grown pretty dramatically since she took office,” Ullman said in a phone interview Thursday.

Ullman said she was “not surprised” that her records request was denied.

Owens said her actions are justified and consistent with advice from county attorneys. She said that the coroner’s office does not release autopsy reports except to physicians, family members, attorneys or law enforcement officials. Medical records must be kept private in accordance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, or HIPAA, Owens said.

Former Attorney General David Leroy agreed with the county’s decision and said Ullman’s request was too broad.

Not all counties bar the release of autopsy reports. Canyon County, for example, sometimes releases them. Canyon County Coroner Vicki DeGeus-Morris said the department considers requests “case by case.”

The Republican candidate for corner, Nikole O’Neal, has criticized Owens’ office for “limited transparency.” “We need to see how much work they’re actually doing,” O’Neal told the Statesman.

Ullman has shared her records of department employees’ pay with O’Neal, whose campaign has also submitted its own records requests.

Ada County Coroner’s Office employee pay in 2013, 2015 and today:

Source: As provided to Sharon Ullman by the Ada County Department of Administration