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OFFICE OF THE MEDICAL EXAMINER Roger E. Mittleman, M.D. Chief Medical Examiner March 18, 2019 DISTRICT 19 2500 South 35th Street — Fort Pierce, FL 34981-5573 (772) 464-7378 • Fax (772) 464-2409 Ms. Kristin Daniels Budget Director Indian River County Board of County Commissioners 1801 27th Street Vero Beach, FL 32960-3365 Dear Kristin: Linda Rush O'Neil, M.D. Associate Medical Examiner I am submitting the District 19 Medical Examiner's fiscal year 2019-2020 budget to the Indian River County Board of County Commissioners for approval. The adjusted budget request after deducting the credit of unused funds is a decrease of -.54% despite the overall increase of 28.16% district -wide. This decrease is the result of a one- time credit of unused funds that will not be recurring next year. The reason for this substantial credit of unused funds, as explained by the Finance Department of Indian River State College, is an accumulation of actual unused funds over the last three years that they were able to calculate once all transactions with the college stopped. The transition from Indian River State College to St. Lucie County resulted in the discovery of this unexpected surplus. As explained in my memorandum dated January 16, 2019 to the County Budget Directors, there will be the need for an additional physician to cover the office from October 1, 2019, until January 31, 2020. Please carefully review the attached memo, since the meaning of this letter will have some significance on the content of the memorandum. I am pleased to announce that we have hired two qualified forensic pathologists, one to replace Dr. Linda O'Neil (leaving the office on January 31, 2020), and another pathologist to replace our vacant physician position. Accordingly, I have increased our usual budgetary request to support this emergency situation for the transition, which will bring a completely new group of forensic pathologists to the Treasure Coast. Another important reason for the budgetary increase is because of the need to raise certain salaries within the office to reflect industry standards and length of service (see chart A). The increases with a 3% COLA are modest and will help retain valuable employees and elevate morale. For almost all of these positions, there has been no pay raise for over a decade. It is important to note that despite these increases, our overall budget request is considerably less than two other comparable offices (Chart A). Brevard County is the primary exception and has been 98 SERVING ... INDIAN RIVER, MARTIN. OKEECHOBEE AND ST. LUCIE COUNTIES