After discussing matters for the last few weeks about how to best pay the coroners office, Allen County commissioners took the coroners budget away from Sheriff Bryan Murphy and will now pay the offices budget themselves.
Dr. Scott Coates, who serves as coroner for Allen County, recommended the budget item be under the commissioners purview, said Commissioner Jerry Daniels.
Besides the sheriffs department, the only other entity that has involvement with the coroners office are the county commissioners, Daniels said. He said the ultimate responsibility to make sure those bills get paid falls at the feet of the commissioners. And I agree with that, no offense to anyone.
Murphy replied, Basically what they are doing is taking away any oversight. They cant look into the criminal backgrounds, and had I not been able to do that, we never would have known he should not have been paid. Its just a waste of taxpayer money.
Commissioner Daniels response to that was, Ive been in law enforcement for 22 years. I think we can handle paying the budget.
Two weeks ago, commissioners agreed to pay Jared Froggate, an investigator with the Iola Police Department, $250 for work done on two investigations for the coroners office.
Froggate said Murphy denied his claims and he was trying to find out why he had not bbeen paid.
At the next commission meeting, Murphy said Froggate was not paid because a doctor signed off on the death certificates, meaning no investigation was needed.
Murphy said his office has paid claims made by Froggate on six different occasions when an investigation was needed.
Ultimately, the commissioners are responsible for all tax dollars therefore it is their right to oversee the budget, yet I would argue that it isnt good business practice to waste tax dollars, no matter how minimal, Murphy said. If the commissioners plan to pay any bill brought to them without questions, I think its a good idea they oversee these expenses going forward because otherwise we would have conflict.
IN OTHER news, Terry Call, who serves as the planning and zoning commissioner received a bid from Koehn Construction for putting up flagpoles at both the Humboldt and Moran ambulance barns. The combined price came in at $8,685.51. Call said he had spoken with a few other people, who said the price was about right. This price includes labor, material and electrical for the lighting of the flag. Daniels asked Call if he could get two more estimates.
COMMISSIONER BILL King did not attend the meeting due to illness.
