Ohio budget moves closer to doing away with elected county coroners
Jun. 6—For now, the Ohio Senate is going along on an Ohio House plan to make county coroners appointed by county commissioners instead of being elected by county voters.
But, while the Senate didn't change the House's proposal in its initial draft of the state's two-year operating budget, Senate President Rob McColley, R-Napoleon, told reporters that there's still a chance the Senate could eliminate the House's proposal when it amends the budget next week.
McColley said he put a request out for those in his caucus with strong feelings on the matter to weigh in.
"If members feel strongly that it should go back to the way that it is under current law, then there's a possibility to see an amendment here in the omnibus," McColley told this news outlet. "We didn't see a lot of members — we saw some — but we didn't see a lot of members asking for it to be changed back."
The Senate is expected to make those amendments on Wednesday or Thursday of next week.
The change could be consequential in counties where county commissioners and the coroner are different political parties. In Montgomery County, for example, the elected coroner is a Republican while Democrats hold two of the three seats on the county commission.
The House's primary advocate for the change, county commissioner-turned-lawmaker Rep. Brian Stewart, R-Ashville, has framed the change as necessary to solve a scarcity issue.
"It's really hard to find folks that want to serve as a coroner at all, it's even harder to find folks who are willing to be the coroner and want to run a political campaign to do so," Stewart said in April.
But the proposed change is opposed by Ohio State Coroners Association, whose Executive Director David Corey told this outlet that he's still hopeful that former coroners in the Ohio Senate, like Sen. Matt Huffman, R-Tipp City, will help the Senate reverse course.
"Commissioners already have the authority to appoint a physician to be coroner if no one runs," Corey said. "So they already have this authority — so why subject this as a blanket on everyone?"
Corey noted that commissioners also already have the authority to contract out with different county coroner offices if there's no elected coroner and the commission cannot find an in-county physician that wants to be appointed.
"We don't really know what (problem) the House is trying and the Senate are trying to fix ... other than chipping away at other elected officials," Corey said.
Corey said the idea is "wrought with potential problems," and speculated that coroners appointed by commissioners might be more beholden to those officials than they are to the public. He said appointees could also be fired at will, which would make it harder for a coroner to stand up to the commission in budget negotiations or other high-stakes situations.
"We just think it's a horrible precedent," Corey said.
Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio, D-Lakewood, whose home county of Cuyahoga is one of two counties in the state where the position is already appointed following a local vote, told this outlet that she didn't like the sound of applying the idea to every coroner in the state.
"You want the coroner to feel like they can have a lot of pressure on them," Antonio said. "If they're appointed, then it's almost like they have an affiliation to the person that appointed them."
She said this could lead to undue influence.
"I think we, probably in the long run, would be better off continuing to have them be elected," Antonio said.
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