Budget constraints plague the county coroner’s office nationwide as the single local issue every coroner battles. Skagit Commissioners fail to realize this.
When someone dies unexpectedly in Skagit County — a car crash on I-5, an overdose, a homicide, a child who doesn’t wake up — the coroner’s office answers the call. Not during business hours. Every hour, every day, every holiday. The law doesn’t give the coroner the option of being closed.
But the Skagit County Board of Commissioners is treating this office as optional. As part of the county’s 2026 budget — a budget that eliminated 51 positions countywide — the commissioners propose to cut the coroner’s office staff by two, leaving the elected coroner and a single deputy to do the work that five personnel were doing. Two people. 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, with no relief, no backup, and no consideration for the burnout and psychological toll this work exacts. And while doing that, the commissioners are publicly threatening to reduce the coroner’s salary — a decision they have indicated will not be finalized until December, targeted specifically at the incoming four-year term beginning January 2027.
I’m running for coroner because I believe this community deserves better. Here is what the law actually says, and why what’s happening should concern every Skagit County resident.
The coroner’s office is not a discretionary program. It’s a constitutional office the county is required to fund.
The coroner is not a department the commissioners created and can defund at will. It is an independent, elected office established under Article XI, Section 5 of the Washington Constitution, and state law places its costs squarely on the county:
- RCW 36.24.020 — “The costs of inquests … shall be borne by the county.”
- RCW 68.50.104 — “The cost of autopsy shall be borne by the county in which the autopsy is performed.”
- RCW 68.52.020 — Morgue staff salaries and operating expenses “shall be paid monthly out of the county treasury.”
- RCW 36.17.020 and 36.17.040 — The coroner’s salary is set by the county legislative authority, subject to statutory minimums, and paid from the county treasury.
- Chapter 36.40 RCW — The county budget process is how the commissioners meet these obligations. It is a duty, not a favor.
The commissioners control the budget — but the duties of this office are fixed by state law. Death investigations under RCW 68.50.010 are mandatory. Autopsies in suspicious deaths are mandatory. Responding to every reportable death is mandatory. When the commissioners cut the staff that performs mandatory duties, they don’t reduce the workload. They just make it impossible to do lawfully, safely, and with the dignity grieving families deserve.
Our smaller neighbor does more with less population. We do less with more.
Compare us to Island County, directly to our west:
| Skagit County | Island County | |
|---|---|---|
| Population | ~132,000 | ~87,000 |
| Coroner’s office staffing | Proposed: coroner + 1 deputy | [X] full-time staff |
| On-call coverage | 2 people, 24/7/365 | [Describe Island’s rotation] |
Island County — with roughly 45,000 fewer residents — maintains a coroner’s office staffed to provide sustainable around-the-clock coverage. Skagit County, with a larger population, more highway miles, and more reportable deaths each year, proposes to run the same statutory mission with two human beings and no relief.
What two-person coverage actually means
Death investigation is not paperwork. It means scene response at 3 a.m., transporting and safeguarding remains, autopsy coordination, next-of-kin notifications, testimony, and evidence handling in cases that may become homicide prosecutions. With two people:
- There is no such thing as a day off. Illness, a family emergency, a vacation — any absence puts one person on call alone, indefinitely.
- Burnout is not a risk; it’s a certainty. Death investigators carry cumulative trauma. National best-practice standards recognize this. A two-person office has no capacity for mental recovery time — and exhausted investigators make mistakes.
- Mistakes in this office are not recoverable. A missed finding at a death scene can compromise a criminal prosecution, an insurance determination, or a family’s answers about how their loved one died. There are no do-overs in death investigation.
- Legal exposure grows. Delayed responses, lapses in chain of custody, and errors born of exhaustion expose the county to liability that will cost far more than the two positions being cut.
What I’m asking for
- Restore the two positions. Funding the coroner’s office at a level that permits lawful, humane 24/7 operation is a statutory obligation, not a line-item preference.
- Abandon the threatened salary reduction or publicly explain the legal review and policy rationale behind it before any December vote.
- Commission an independent workload study comparing Skagit’s coroner staffing and caseload to peer counties — including Island County — and budget to the result.
- Treat the people who care for our dead with the same respect we ask them to show our families.
Budgets are hard, and I don’t envy the choices the commissioners face. But the primary roles of government — the phrase the commissioners themselves used in this budget cycle — surely include investigating the deaths of its citizens. That is one of the oldest functions of county government in Washington, written into our constitution since 1889.
Skagit County can’t opt out of it. And it shouldn’t try to do it on the backs of two exhausted people.
Sources: Wash. Const. art. XI, §§ 5, 8; RCW 36.24.020; RCW 36.17.020, .024, .040; RCW 68.50.104; RCW 68.52.020; ch. 36.40 RCW; Skagit County 2026 Budget (adopted Dec. 8, 2025); U.S. Census Bureau county population estimates.