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• <br />• <br />• <br />having difficulty recruiting and retaining professional personnel. Also, some of their support <br />services from the county are not included in their total budget request. It is also important to <br />note that the submitted chart comparison is not completely up to date because some of the other <br />districts have not released relevant updated information. <br />Other budgetary increases include toxicology costs, legal fees, digital phone system and <br />liability "tail" insurance. First, the expense of toxicological services continues to escalate. <br />Specifically, we had a 17% increase in 2018 over 2017. Also, increasing work load (Chart B) <br />has resulted in a 7% increase in 2018, compared with 2017. Second, the increase in legal fees is <br />in anticipation of a late 2019 FRS "Special Risk" hearing requested by the Medical Examiner <br />Investigators that you were notified of last year. Please note that a judgement in favor of the <br />request for special risk status will increase our future budget requests and also require many <br />years of retroactive payment. If the county attorney's office would like to participate in or be <br />informed of the issues, please contact us. Third, the office is in need of a new landline phone <br />system. The current phone system is a very outdated analog phone system. Finally, a medical <br />malpractice insurance tail is being provided for Dr. O'Neil upon retirement as a necessary <br />benefit to protect her from any future lawsuits claimed from her long standing and excellent <br />service to the treasure coast communities. <br />Please bear in mind that a large portion of the increase is nonrecurring due to the four <br />months of emergency physician funding. <br />Finally, please note that the differences in accounting practices of St. Lucie County <br />versus Indian River State College has resulted in an artificial budgetary increase. Specifically, <br />for the compensated leave account line item and a contingency line item explained as follows: <br />1. Previously, we contributed to a compensated leave account every year for the purpose of <br />compensating employees for their sick and annual leave upon retirement or leaving the <br />office for other reasons. Remaining funds were never applied to the credit of unused <br />funds but added to the compensated leave account now totaling $305,279.00. We are no <br />longer able to use this practice. Instead, the new method of budgeting for compensated <br />leave will be one lump sum based on the total leave payout for all employees. However, <br />this year the expense will be paid for with the compensated leave account we have <br />maintained by applying it to the credit of unused funds. <br />2. This year we are able to add a new line item for a "contingency" fund. This fund is also <br />subsidized with a portion of the credit of unused funds. With all of the changes <br />occurring within the ME office (i.e., turnover of doctors and transition to St. Lucie <br />County) we have created this fund as a reserve to cover any unexpected or unforeseen <br />future expenses. <br />Accordingly, we want to emphasize that the ME budget for FY 2020-21 will not include <br />a significant credit of unused funds as encountered in this year's budget request. Therefore, we <br />anticipate the budget request after credit of unused funds to not show the substantial reduction <br />that we are able to return to the counties this budget year. <br />99 <br />