Deputies in the Porter County Coroner’s Office are working under a new staffing structure and pay rate after the Porter County Council heeded the office’s concerns about a potential staffing crisis because too many deputies are leaving because they can’t cover the 12-hour shifts and still work their day jobs.
Part-time deputies are now paid hourly instead of by salary under the changes.
“It’s not because they don’t want to do their jobs. It’s because the shifts that are required of them conflict with their primary jobs,” explained Coroner Cyndi Dykes during the June 25 meeting. “It’s not a lucrative position,” added Chief Deputy Coroner Brian Bowles.
“It’s going to be catastrophic,” he explained of the coming months if changes to the schedule aren’t made. “It’s a mess.”
Bowles said three deputies have recently left. Two have been hired to replace them, but aren’t trained yet and can only receive that training during call-outs.
Porter County’s deputy coroners, who respond to process and take away the bodies of the county’s deceased, made a salary of $10,412 per year, and the chief deputy made a salary of $12,772. They averaged six 12-hour shifts per month and scrambled to maintain coverage.
“What changed?” asked Councilman Andy Bozak, R-At-Large. “Because it’s been working for what? Fifteen years?”
“It’s been working, but now it’s time to change,” Dykes replied. Bowles said he and his colleagues aren’t paying their bills off the wages. They do it as a service and many deputies’ full-time employers simply can’t or won’t accommodate the 12-hour commitment.
If a deputy is out on a coroner call, they can’t cut the process short if they have to get to their full-time job. That means calling off or being late and too many have had to drop the coroner role.
“So what’s happening now is we’re three people short,” Bowles said. “So now we’re asking our other deputies to work nine shifts this month for nothing.”
Dykes said her office has to cover 8,760 on-call hours per year. Switching to an hourly system not only allows them to offer shorter shifts to deputies who are happy to stay onboard if they can accommodate their full-time job schedules but also determine fixed costs.
Under the salaried system, deputies were paid an unlimited stipend on top of the salaries: $12.50 for taking what’s called an informational call over the phone such as a natural death at a hospital, or $50 for attending to a body on-scene. Because there is no way to predict deaths, the coroner’s office never knew what the stipend budget would be.
The Porter County Coroner’s Office will now pay deputies $17 an hour, and the chief deputy $20 an hour. This will increase the budget by $40,000 per year, but the unknown cost of the unlimited stipends will be eliminated.
“We are considered first responders now,” Dykes said, explaining that the average wage of a first responder in Indiana is $16.65 an hour. “Their job, what they have to see, who they have to talk to,” Dykes said of the job, which includes responding to murders and suicides.
The council voted 6-to-1 in favor of the changes. Councilman Greg Simms, D-3rd, voted no.
Shelley Jones is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.