SOUTH BEND — Pacific County is one of a handful of small counties across Washington legislatively mandated to create an independent coroner’s office by Jan. 1, 2025. The requirement comes without specific state funding.

Coroners investigate and certify the cause and manner of death in various circumstances, such as when deaths occur suddenly and without medical attention within 36 hours; violent, unnatural, suspicious or unlawful deaths; and deaths caused by contagious diseases.

The new agency will fall under the purview of the Pacific County Commission and will not be an elected position.

The commission and Pacific County General Administration met with a group on Oct. 23 to see a presentation and discuss an option. Eric Anderson, owner of Penttila’s Chapel by the Sea in Long Beach and Bayview Funeral Home in Raymond, has offered to take on the job.

Anderson, along with Brandi Hubert, a long-time deputy coroner, and Kaley Altman, a current deputy coroner under the Pacific County Prosecutor’s Office, made a proposal. Anderson would head the agency as a part-time employee, and Hubert and Altman would be full-time employees.

According to County Chief Administrative Officer Paul Plakinger, the new agency is projected to cost around $400,000 a year. However, since forming an agency from scratch is a new endeavor, nothing is set in stone.

“It feels like it’s going to be difficult to know the appropriate expenditure number until this has played into 2025,” Plakinger said. “To see if, OK, when this was a part of the prosecutor’s office, this looked like something, and now that this is separate, does it look like something else in terms of what the expenditure level needs?”

Several issues need to be worked out, including a concern that Altman has a relationship with a Pacific County Sheriff’s Office deputy, thus creating a potential conflict of interest for some cases, and Anderson’s business potentially benefiting from his role.

Details about where to locate the agency, likely within offices in the basement of the courthouse, are also being worked out. Also, whether other elements will be mandated, such as a morgue, and where one could even be placed.

Public defenders

In addition to the office budgeting issue, Plakinger received an email on Nov. 4 from the state letting the county know it would receive $26,270 in funding for public defenders. The county actually spent over $590,000 on public defenders for criminal defendants last year.

Thus, the county paid out of pocket over $564,000 for mandated legal services, which are supposed to be entirely funded by the state. Between the coroner’s office and public defenders, the county foots the bill out of its current expense of almost $1 million.

“You are talking about more help in the assessor’s office, you are talking about more support in the clerk’s office, you are talking about more help in the juvenile court’s services, superior court,” Plakinger said of the difference $1 million could make for the county’s budget.

“It’s really anything — auditor, assessor, clerk, treasurer … you are talking about core services that if you don’t have revenue, the general fund has to pick up the difference,” Plakinger added.

The funds could also significantly improve public safety, including the sheriff’s office and Pacific County Jail.

The Washington State Association of Counties has asked the legislature to prioritize funding the small counties required to create an independent coroner’s office. However, any state funding is unlikely until the next legislative session starts at the beginning of the year.