With the cost of gas threatening to break the budget of most government entities, at its Tuesday meeting the Monroe County Commission questioned why the county is spending so much on autopsies.

Numbers from the finance director’s office show the county budgeted $25,000 for autopsies in 2006-07, but ended up spending just over $32,000. For the soon to end 2007-08 fiscal year, the county had budgeted $33,000. But with only a few days to go, the county had to put another $10,000 in to cover the autopsies.

Why all the autopsies?

In law enforcement, there can a combination of factors that lead to an autopsy, from officers working the case to the desires of the district attorney’s office. But the final decision is normally left to County Coroner Ken Kozawa, however, other doctors may perform autopsies, usually in homicide cases involving forensics.

“We have what I guess you could call the ‘under 50’ rule,” Monroe County Sheriff’s Detective Travis Jones said. “If some one under the age of 50 dies and they have no medical history that could have led to an early death, or if it’s just not obvious what they died from, we will probably have an autopsy performed. You always want to be sure because you never know what might have happened.”

While the cause of death, at any age, can be any number of things, Jones said sometimes the cause is obvious.

“If some one who seemed perfectly healthy dies in front of witnesses while clutching his or her chest, that’s probably a heart attack,” Jones said. “It’s rare to have an autopsy in a case like that.”

People under the age of 50 do die of natural causes, but even that doesn’t stop the desire for an autopsy among some people, Sweetwater Detective John Scruggs said.

“No matter what happens, no matter the circumstances,” Scruggs said, “if somebody under 50 dies and it’s not obvious why, there will be somebody declare it was murder. And if they don’t like our autopsy result, they will sometimes get one of their own. And two doctors can come to completely different conclusion from the same death.”

“If the coroner decides there’s no need for an autopsy, we can still request one, or the family of the deceased can seek one,” Jones said. “But if that happens, the family pays for the procedure.”

An autopsy costs $1,200 to perform, meaning the county has paid for 28 of them this year. County Finance Director Brian Tallent said he expects the autopsy budget to be around $43,000 for 2008-09.

“We may not use all that money,” Tallent said. “This type of thing can always slow down. If there’s some of it left over, it goes back into the general fund.”

The county pays for the autopsy regardless of whether the death occurs in the county or inside one of the municipalities.

michael.thomason@advocate anddemocrat.com | 442-4575.