The Fentress County Commission has approved increased death investigator rates for the county coroner.
Fentress County Coroner Dr. Chad Conatser said his team currently charges $50 per case. Conatser said he feels like $50 per case is not fair.
“Anything where we send out an autopsy is gonna require multiple days’ worth of work,” Conatser said. “It doesn’t just require the death investigator going to the scene of the death and reporting back to me, and then sending the body to a funeral home. An autopsy case sometimes takes weeks.”
A two-tier charge system was also proposed, and the commission opted to increase the base rate from $50 to $75 while adding a three-tier system that would charge $100 or $125, depending on the amount of work put into the case. Commissioner Kim Davidson said a third-tier charge was needed.
“I mean, I even see if it goes beyond, like you said, some of them drag out for weeks, I mean, I could see even another tier,” Davidson said.
County Attorney Leslie Ledbetter said the death investigator team is used more than most people think.
“They actually get subpoenaed quite a bit to testify and or questioned by multiple attorneys, and they don’t get paid for that either,” Ledbetter said. “So there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work that’s not just hands-on there. Sometimes I’ve had to reach out to them months later, not weeks later.”
The commission told Conatser that if the rates needed to go up even more to come back and the commission would review the rates again.
In other business, the commission approved the 2025 end-of-fiscal-year financials.
The commission approved to surplus equipment from the Highway Department.
The commission approved accepting a policy handbook change for the Highway Department. The change states that if employees miss a day of work the day before or after a holiday, then the employee would not receive the holiday pay. Fentress County Finance Director Tyler Arms said since Highway Superintendent Ryan Reed is an elected official, he has the authority to make the change.