January 29, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For more information, contact Ibis Antongiorgi, Press Secretary to Cook County Board President Todd H. Stroger, at 312-603-0396 or by email at iantongiorgi@cookcountygov.com. 

Police, Community Representatives Urge County Commissioners to Adequately Fund Medical Examiner 

Proposed cuts would gut essential services to police, public health agencies, grieving families, say representatives from law enforcement, funeral services, religious groups.

CHICAGO, January 29, 2008 – Representatives of the North Suburban Police Chief’s Association, the South Suburban Chief's Association, the 5th District Chief's Association, the West Suburban Chief's Association, the Cook County Sheriff’s Police and other law enforcement agencies joined representatives from the metro Orthodox Jewish and Muslim communities, funerary services providers, and the head of Cook County’s Emergency Management Agency Tuesday morning at the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office to urge the County Board to provide additional revenue to adequately fund services at the office. Cook County’s Medical Examiner, Dr. Nancy Jones, also spoke, along with County Board President Todd H. Stroger.

Dr. Jones sent County Board Finance Chairman John Daley a detailed letter in December outlining the impact of proposed cuts on the office – the second largest of its kind in the nation. The Medical Examiner’s Office, which is already understaffed, would see impacts that including overcrowding of bodies, an end to sending investigators to scenes of police deaths and shootings, severe delays or cancellations of a variety of services for families and funeral directors, doubling of the time it takes to process toxicology studies for police investigations, the failure over time of increasingly antiquated testing equipment and the subsequent compromise of death investigations, delays in the diagnosis of public health threats like meningitis, and a host of other negative outcomes for police agencies, health professionals, families and funerary service providers.

Jones’ initial assessment looked at the consequences of a 10% budget cut for her office, which has already cut staff by about 14% -- from 113 to 97 positions – since 2000. County Commissioners are now examining plans to increase those cuts by almost a third – to 13% of the budget for each County Department. That would total just over $1 million for the Medical Examiner’s Office, resulting in the elimination of the second and third shifts and allowing autopsies to be conducted seven days a week. But the office would no longer be able to accept bodies after 4 p.m. each day, with potentially dire consequences to the ME's ability to meet its statutory responsibilities.

“The Medical Examiner’s Office is one of Cook County’s most important – and yet unsung – offices,” said President Stroger. “They provide vital services, from making sure that police agencies get the autopsy, toxicology and other results they need to solve crimes in our communities to providing funeral directors and the grieving families they serve with quick access to the permits and approvals they need to bury their loved ones with dignity and respect. Today, this office never closes, because death does not work an eight-hour day. But the proposed budget cuts will force the elimination of two out of three work shifts – to the detriment of our police, our health care professionals, and grieving families across Cook County.”

Some of the Medical Examiner’s staff have worked for weeks without a day off to cover staff shortages. Further cuts in staff and funding will threaten core services, says Dr. Jones.

“The proposed cuts would force us to pull investigators from crime scenes, terminate a host of services to funeral directors and the public, relinquish responsibility for securing vital criminal evidence, and most importantly, cut operations from 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to a single shift workday,” said Dr. Jones. “The hardship that will create for our communities is severe.”

Cook County faces a budget shortfall of $239 million for 2008, driven by flat County revenues that fail to keep pace with inflation and the Board’s obligation to honor labor contracts and cost-of-living increases for workers that the Commissioners approved in 2007. The County’s structural deficit is expected to continue to grow in the coming years. Last year, President Stroger pushed through $500 million in cuts to tackle the County’s record 2007 budget shortfall, but Stroger has joined health care professionals, public policy experts and civic activists to argue that additional cuts would gut the County’s ability to provide essential services. Stroger has instead proposed a two cent increase in the County’s sales tax to tackle the 2008 shortfall and address the structural deficit over the long term.

“This is a public safety issue that will hit every community in the county,” said Police Chief Pat O’Conner, who is Director of Public Safety for Moraine Valley and serves as President of the South Suburban Chief’s Association. “It will impact not just our jobs as police officers, but how we adjudicate evidence. Cuts of this magnitude in the office effectively re-victimize families who are already victims. In addition, local communities will now have to shoulder the burden of housing remains until they can be delivered during the weekday to the Medical Examiner. And human remains that effectively serve as evidence in a court of law will be subject to the kinds of concerns that any unsecured evidence is subject to. Just investigating suspicious deaths is hard enough. These cuts will throw our evidence collection procedures into serious question in court.”

The Medical Examiner provides law enforcement agencies across the County, including the City of Chicago, with information that is critical to criminal investigations. Cuts in staff and operating funds could have severe consequences for police departments, including the Chicago Police Department.

“The Chicago Police Department relies upon the valuable services of the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office to ensure that timely police investigations are conducted,” said Deputy Superintendent Hiram Grau of the Chicago Police Department’s Bureau of Investigative Services. “Their role is essential in providing forensic reports that assist detectives in expediting thorough death investigations.”

One of the key concerns of suburban police chiefs and law enforcement agencies is that they will be shouldered with the responsibility for finding a place to hold bodies. Human remains routinely function as evidence in criminal investigations. That would force hospitals, funeral homes or other contractors to provide proof of chain of evidence -- and perhaps routinely submit to subpoenas and other demands of the State’s Attorney and the courts, since the Medical Examiner’s Office can provide testimony relevant only from the moment the office takes receipt of remains. Any issues surrounding the quality of evidence in criminal cases threatens the timely investigation of these cases – and potential prosecutions of wrongdoers.

In addition, where deaths are driven by public health threats like infectious diseases, the concern is that cuts in the office could significantly delay officials’ ability to identify – and respond to – public health threats.

“During the heat wave in 1995, when the Medical Examiner's Office had 40% more staff than they will after these proposed cuts, the agency struggled to handle an overflow of more than 700 casualties at their facility,” said Dan Coughlin, Coordinator of the Cook County Emergency Management Agency. “Today, we confront more risks than ever, from the threat of infectious diseases like bird flu or meningitis to possible terrorist events. For example, in terms of infectious diseases, we could lose vital days in the effort to notify first responders about a public health threat, with catastrophic results. We simply cannot afford to under-fund this office because too much is at stake.”

Projects that facilitate organ transplants – an effort that literally creates a chance for renewed life out of the sorrow of death – rely on the office to provide approval for organ harvesting that saves lives. The window to harvest organs is short – and agencies fear life-saving transplants could be thwarted because harvesting opportunities will inevitably arise when the office is closed.  While the office currently runs around the clock, the proposed cuts would force the Medical Examiner to eliminate the second and third shifts of its operations.

“The impact of any additional budget cuts in the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office would have significant impact on the lives of the 4,700 patients in Illinois waiting for a life-saving organ transplant,” said Jack Lynch, Director of Community Affairs for the Gift of Hope Organ and Tissue Donor Network, the federally designated not-for-profit agency that coordinates organ and tissue donation and supports families of organ and tissue donors in Illinois and northwest Indiana. “It is critical to the successful donation process for us to have 24-hour access to medical examiners, and to have a system that facilitates rapid sharing of information. Otherwise, lives will be unnecessarily lost.”

As one of 58 organ procurement organizations that make up the nation’s organ donation system, Gift of Hope works with 183 hospitals and serves 11.7 million residents in its donation service area. The agency relies on the Medical Examiner’s Office to approve organ harvesting in cases where there is concern about preserving evidence in a suspected crime or accident investigation.

Members of both the metropolitan area’s Jewish and Muslim community rely on speedy release of remains from the Medical Examiner’s Office to ensure that their traditions – which mandate swift burial – are honored.

“The Medical Examiner’s Office has in the past gone above and beyond the call of duty to respect the Jewish tradition of burying our dead within a 24-hour period,” said Rabbi Moshe Wolf, Vice President of the Jewish Sacred Society and a chaplain at law enforcement agencies that include the Chicago Police Department. ”It is of utmost importance to the Jewish people that that the cooperation and assistance from the Medical Examiner does not stop. We have enormous respect for this office, and call on our legislators to provide the Medical Examiner with the financial support the office needs to continue its outstanding service to the community.”

Speedy and respectful burial is also of paramount importance to Cook County’s Muslim community. Community members rely on the Medical Examiner’s Office to process required paperwork under a timeline that facilitates the release of decedents into the custody of their loved ones for prompt interment.

“Muslims strive to bury our dead as soon as possible,” said Janaan Hashim of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago. “Our community relies on the cultural sensitivity and round-the-clock operations of the Medical Examiner’s Office to ensure that we can honor our traditions and bury our loved ones swiftly and respectfully. Service cuts in the office would make it terribly difficult to preserve this commitment.”

Even routine services for funeral homes would be disrupted with the cuts.

“The Medical Examiner has streamlined a host of services for funeral homes in recent years,” said Edward Calahan, President of Calahan Funeral Home and a member of the Illinois Funeral Directors Association, the Illinois Selected Morticians Association, and the Cook County Association of Funeral Home Owners. “These budget cuts will slash a host of services we rely on, from the ability to fax in forms for cremations to the quick provision of death certificates. The impact on grieving loved ones will be terrible.”

Cuts would include shortened hours during which funeral directors can pick up bodies; an end to the practice of accommodating most families for viewings of their loved ones; the end to providing cremation permits via the ME’s Investigations Department when the medical records department is closed; an end to sending investigators to funeral homes to examine bodies and provide death certificates on site; an end to assisting funeral directors in obtaining addresses, telephone numbers or other information concerning an individual’s personal physician in cases that have been deemed to not fall under the Medical Examiner’s jurisdiction; termination of the policy to provide death certificates in the absence of a signed certificate from a physician; and an end to the provision of information to local and regional media sources.

“Our police agencies, faith groups, health projects, and grieving families deserve better,” said President Stroger. “They deserve an office that is adequately funded, to the level that allows it to meet its statutory requirements and serve the public with professionalism, compassion and integrity.”
 

For more information about County initiatives and issues, contact Ibis Antongiorgi, Press Secretary to Cook County Board President Todd H. Stroger, at 312-603-0396 or iantongiorgi@cookcountygov.com. 

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