Should Ohio's county coroners be elected? Draft state budget says no

Yahoo

17-04-2025

Apr. 17—Ohioans would no longer elect their county coroners if a provision passed by the Ohio House makes its way into state law.
The county coroner is one of a handful of countywide political offices elected by the entire county, alongside the offices of county commissioner, sheriff, auditor, recorder, engineer, treasurer, prosecutor, clerk of court and county judges.
But the Republican-led Ohio House folded a provision into its budget proposal that would turn all 88 Ohio county coroners offices into offices appointed by county commissioners.
Appointed coroners, like elected coroners today, would still serve four-year terms under the proposal. Duly elected coroners would be allowed serve out the remainder of their terms.
Ohio House Finance Chair Rep. Brian Stewart, R-Ashville, told reporters that the change was off the back of "years and years" of debate.
Stewart said the provision would help solve a scarcity issue counties are frequently running into. "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," he said.
The result, Stewart said, is that Ohio lawmakers have had to step in to allow specific counties to appoint their coroners.
"We think it's just time to get away from the entire process," said Stewart, a former Pickaway County commissioner. "I don't think there's a Democrat and a Republican way to sign a death certificate. I think it's time to just simplify matters (and) let the county commissioners retain a coroner the same way they retain a dozen other officials to do a very specialized job."
Coroners react
Montgomery County Coroner Kent Harshbarger told this outlet that the House's proposal wouldn't solve any problems.
"We'd love to improve the system if there's ways to improve it," Harshbarger said. "This saves no money; it changes nothing. It doesn't improve any system, but it gives all the power to three people — the coroner's not accountable to anyone other than those three people."
Harshbarger, a Republican who has long run unopposed in the county, won another four-year term last year that will take him through 2028. If the House's provision had been law of the land last year, Harshbarger's political fate would have been decided by the three Democrats who manned the Montgomery County Commission at the time.
A joint statement from the county coroners of Butler, Clermont, Hamilton, Highland and Warren counties decried that the proposal wasn't brought to county coroners before being added to the bill. The statement called it "unprofessional and reckless."
"The office of the County Coroner — a position elected by the people — serves as a vital check against institutional overreach by ensuring that cause and manner of death determinations and forensic investigations are conducted impartially and without undue influence," the statement reads. "Eliminating this role removes a layer of democratic oversight and risks consolidating investigative power in less accountable, potentially politicized hands."
The county coroner's job
Harshbarger raised general concerns about commissioners' considerations when appointing a coroner, given that commissioners are tasked with setting the county government's budget.
"Right now, I sit at the same table with everyone else who's elected by the same people and demands my operational piece of the pie," Harshbarger said. "That goes away when (coroners) become appointed."
In Ohio, coroners must at minimum be licensed physicians with two years experience and have good standing. As far as political legwork goes, candidates must obtain 50 verified signatures from independent or politically aligned county voters in order to participate in a primary — any further campaigning is optional.
Harshbarger explained that the pay of county coroners doesn't provide incentive to get active physicians to leave the private sector. As such, the county coroner role generally attracts retiring doctors. Recent changes in the state's health benefits, combined with the fact that coroners must be on call 24/7, leads to the job being unattractive for many.
Of the state's 88 coroner offices, 10 are currently filled through non-electoral means: either through appointment or through contracting out coroner work to other counties. Harshbarger, for example, also serves as the appointed Morrow County coroner.
Stewart told this outlet in a text that he has no intention of changing any other countywide elected office to an appointed office.
There is a well-documented shortage of forensic pathologists qualified to do a coroner's job. In fact, several local elected county coroners have full-time jobs in other counties where they can make more money than the law allots for the elected position. — Montgomery Count Coroner Harshbarger is chief deputy coroner for the Franklin County Coroner's Office. — Clark County Coroner Susan Brown is a forensic pathologist at the Montgomery County Coroner's Office. — Warren County Coroner Russell Uptegrove is deputy coroner at the Hamilton County Coroner's Office.
There has so far been no public testimony heard on the House's coroner provision. It was folded into the budget proposal alongside more than a hundred other amendments and voted out of committee that same day before the bill was approved by the House the next day.
The provision is expected to draw debate once the Ohio Senate begins vetting the budget proposal later this month.
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Avery Kreemer can be reached at 614-981-1422, on X, via email, or you can drop him a comment/tip with the survey below.