Lewis County Coroner’s Office Asks Commissioners to Raise Hourly Wage for Casual Help

Lewis County: Commissioners Set Meeting in August for Further Discussion on Budget

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The Lewis County Coroner’s Office is petitioning Lewis County to increase the hourly rate of pay for the office’s casual employees who, despite making significantly less than full-time employees, have historically responded to most of the office’s calls. 

Casual employees are workers who are hired to work on an intermittent or as-needed basis instead of a set number of hours per week.

At the coroner’s office, those casual employees sign up to be on call for an eight-hour shift. If no calls come in, they’re paid a flat $25 for being on call. If they’re called to respond to a death, they get paid $14 to $16 an hour for the time they spend out on that call — despite undergoing more than 80 hours of training before they’re allowed to work.

“It’s time for the county to pay these folks,” said Coroner Warren McLeod, who attended a meeting with Lewis County commissioners on July 7 with his four casual staff members seated behind him.

“The folks behind me are continually the ones doing the shifts and the work and it’s time for the county to … pay them a professional rate for doing a professional job,” said McLeod, who last year spoke out against a raise for elected officials that included himself. 

McLeod estimates that, with the two new full-time employees the county granted the office in last year’s budget, casual employees handle 75% of the office’s calls.

Before the coroner’s office hired those two full-time employees, casual employees handled 100% of the calls.

For an uncomplicated case, such as a natural death with family members present to identify the deceased and answer questions, McLeod said a call can take roughly five to seven hours. When there’s no family present, or if the fatality was caused by an accident, fire or other unnatural cause, the call can take a lot longer.

Jason Baker, a casual employee with the Lewis County Coroner’s Office who agreed to answer some questions from Lewis County commissioners at a July 7 meeting, recalled working an evening shift on the Fourth of July and receiving a call 40 minutes into his shift. That investigation took the remainder of his shift, and he didn’t return home until roughly 5 a.m. the next morning.

“There’s no guarantee what we’re doing,” Baker said.

When asked how the job affects him emotionally, Baker said, “there’s a lot because we’re dealing with families in probably some of the worst times of their life … It does affect you. You try and work with the families. I look at it as I want to treat the families the way that my family would be treated or I would be treated. You know, I want to do everything that I can to take care of the families. We want to be compassionate, empathetic, be very professional and help the families out through a very difficult time.”

Baker told the commissioners he currently owns a photography business and previously worked another part-time job to make ends meet, but quit that job this year in order to dedicate more time to the coroner’s office as he prepares to earn his American Board of Medicolegal Death Investigators (ABMDI) certification that would allow him to be hired as a full-time employee.



“The on-call and the casual help is not enough to make ends meet,” Baker said. “I thankfully have roommates to help out with my expenses. Yeah, it’s not enough to make ends meet as a full job as it is right now.”

McLeod is asking the county to raise the hourly rate to $21.32: a low point on the salary grid for regular full-time employees at the coroner’s office. 

County Budget Manager Becky Butler said the proposed rate is in line with the rate of pay in neighboring counties. Many neighboring counties no longer have casual employees staffing their coroner’s offices, she said, but those that do pay between $18 and $31 per hour.

“I can speak to this position as unique. We’re not going to have a whole lot of people hiring for this type of position. It’s very hard to recruit,” said Butler, adding that keeping wages in line with neighboring counties is important for recruiting and retaining those casual employees.

While the commissioners agreed that the coroner office’s casual employees undoubtedly deserved a pay increase, the commissioners elected to schedule another meeting for August to go over the coroner’s budget as a whole.

“I think over time that this particular department has been overlooked in the entire budget,” Commissioner Lindsey Pollock said. “I don’t want to just say we’ve thrown a teeny tiny bone and we’re good to go for the next five years. I would like us to look at the bigger picture of where we want to be going forward and how this element of the county is going to look because it is such a critical function of what happens with law and justice and public health.”

McLeod told Pollock he appreciated her recognition of the coroner’s office as aspects of law and justice and public health.

“Over the years, it’s been termed that the coroner’s office is the best kept secret of Lewis County because of what we do: we deal with death,” he said. “People don’t pass away, people don’t move on — they die. And most people don’t want to deal with it, because it’s a frightening thing for most people to think about. So this is one of the first times that we’ve heard from outside of our office, a board or a group or anyone, identifying us with law and justice and the public health … We’re out on scene with public health. We’re out on scene with law and fire.”

McLeod expressed concern over having his employees wait another month for the commissioners to make a decision, but Stamper assured McLeod that they will make a timely decision.

“We will get some questions answered so we can make an informed decision for everyone,” he said. “We will make a decision. There will be a decision made.”