Funeral directors protest coroner work

Luzerne County relies heavily on a select list of funeral home owners or employees to respond as deputy coroners when someone dies outside of a health care setting.

Coroners past and present have argued that it makes sense because funeral directors are accustomed to dealing with death, but two area funeral home owners say the setup is unfairly giving the deputies special access to potential customers in their private businesses.

Funeral home owners Patrick Lehman and Aaron Pietryka, who do not work as deputy coroners, say the longtime practice creates a conflict of interest that should end. They believe the system violates state ethics law that prohibits public positions from being used for personal financial gain. They also point to other counties that use emergency responders, health care workers or people with law enforcement backgrounds to cover deputy coroner work.

Luzerne County pays funeral directors $70 to $75 to visit a death scene as deputy coroner, which amounted to about $78,000 last year.

The deputies are instructed not to solicit business for their funeral homes, but there’s no written policy.

“Funeral directors acting as deputy coroners could result in funeral directors using the coroner’s office as a stepping stone to promote and offer their funeral home’s services to people who are already in an extremely vulnerable and emotional state,” said Pietryka, owner of the Wroblewski Funeral Home in Forty Fort.

“Under no circumstances, should this taxpayer-funded office be used for anyone’s private or personal financial gain by promoting goods and services of the funeral home in which they are affliated,” Pietryka said.

Lehman, president of Lehman Family Funeral Service and the Rosenberg Funeral Chapel, both in Wilkes-Barre, said a deputy coroner’s subtle gestures or words at the scene of a death could sway a deceased person’s family to choose his or her funeral home.

“Sometimes all it takes is a hug at the right time,” Lehman said. “I’m tired of it. I have zero tolerance left. I’m not going to stay quiet anymore.”

Both funeral directors say they’ve spoken with other area funeral homes who share similar concerns, and they stress that they’re not accusing all funeral home employees who serve as deputies of crossing the line.

The men also note that they’re not interested in obtaining deputy coroner posts. Pietryka was hired as a deputy coroner last year but said he never carried out any assignments because he felt uncomfortable with the dual role. Lehman said he was offered a deputy spot but declined.

County Coroner John Corcoran said he would terminate a deputy coroner who used the government post to seek private funeral business, but he said he never received any complaints about “pressure” from deputies to choose their funeral home.

It’s common for deputies to end up with a funeral because they typically respond to coroner death calls in their neighborhoods, where there’s a strong chance they would have been chosen as the funeral home anyway, Corcoran said. Roughly 20 funeral directors actively work as deputies, while another 20 serve as backup, he said.

Corcoran said he doubts funeral directors would be willing to keep serving as deputies if he banned them from handling funerals of the deceased persons they process as deputy coroners because they’d be giving up business that they would receive without any involvement as a deputy coroner..

“I’m confident that no deputy takes advantage of the position. They’d have a lot to lose. They could get thrown out of the coroner’s office,” Corcoran said.

Funeral directors are ideal candidates for the post because they have experience relating to grieving families and access to vehicles to transport the deceased to the county morgue if necessary, Corcoran said, noting that the practice of using funeral directors as deputies dates back decades.

Corcoran and Chief Deputy Coroner Bill Lisman both take home a county-owned sports utility vehicle designed to transport the deceased, but Corcoran said deputies also are paid an additional fee for transporting someone to the morgue if he and Lisman are unavailable.

Corcoran, who makes $36,500 annually, does not have set hours as elected county coroner. Lisman is classified as a full-time employee and is paid $42,500. Both work in the funeral business.

The county could opt to buy or rent transport vehicles and hire workers without any ties to funeral homes, but Corcoran believes that would cost more. Funeral directors don’t receive benefits or mileage for deputy coroner work, he said.

Finding other options

York County’s coroner, chief deputy and assistant chief deputy cover all calls, assisted only by three per diem workers in the health care field.

The per diems typically work about one 24-hour shift per month, said office administrative assistant Vivian Howell. The deceased are transported to the morgue by ambulance if necessary, she said.

There’s no risk of a conflict because none of the coroner employees or per diem workers has a link to funeral homes, Howell said.

The York County’s Coroner’s Office responds to about 500 calls annually, compared to 1,300 in Luzerne, records show.

Howell attributes most of the difference in numbers to York’s practice of instructing police and emergency personnel to contact a family doctor to sign the death certificate if the death is from natural causes. The coroner’s office sends someone if a family doctor is unavailable.

Luzerne County does not turn to family doctors to pronounce death. Corcoran estimated that at least two-thirds of the office’s 1,300 annual calls are for death by natural cause.

Neighboring Lackawanna County, which had 1,084 calls last year, is staffed by a coroner, chief deputy, deputy and secretary – with no part-time deputies, the office said. The majority of these calls – 940 – were attributed to natural causes.

Lackawanna staffers speak to the police and/or emergency workers at the scene to determine if a coroner representative should be sent to a death that appears to stem from natural causes. If the emergency workers at the scene see nothing suspicious, the family doctor is asked to sign the death certificate, rather than a coroner office employee, the office says.

The county also uses two county-owned vehicles to transport the deceased to the morgue if necessary, and ambulance companies have contracts to provide transport if the county vehicles are unavailable, the office said.

Chester County Coroner deputies are all emergency medical technicians or paramedics, according to the county.

Berks County Coroner Dennis Hess, a retired police officer, said he opted to staff the office with workers who have police, fire, medical or emergency services backgrounds, as opposed to the funeral service experience preferred in some other counties.

“Most of my deputies have an investigative background because our office handles death investigations, and what better people to investigate death than former police officers?” Hess said.

Hess said he would recommend implementing “safeguards” in coroner’s offices that employ funeral directors.

“I can understand where there might be a conflict of interest if you have funeral directors as deputies because they do stand to gain business,” Hess said.

Group supports changes

More than two-thirds of county coroner offices in Pennsylvania have coroners or deputies affiliated with funeral homes, according to the Funeral Ethics Organization, a Vermont-based, non-profit that pushes for ethical dealings in death-related transactions.

The organization, which surveyed all Pennsylvania counties, describes the practice as a “clear conflict of interest” and supports statutory changes to forbid it, said the organization’s executive director, Lisa Carlson.

Funeral Ethics is also pushing the state Coroner’s Association and counties to adopt the organization’s code of ethics, which would “curb some of the complaints” the organization has received about funeral directors serving double duty for coroner offices, Carlson said.

For example, the code requires the coroner’s office representative to remind the family or representative of the deceased that they have the right to pick a funeral home of their own choosing and provide them with a printed list of all area funeral homes.

The code says it would be unethical for a public official to recommend a funeral home or “take advantage of one’s position.”

“Such funeral director coroners shall not exert pressure on the next-of-kin or designated agent to retain their business,” the code says.

Any coroners using funeral home vehicles to transport the deceased to the county morgue would also have to cover any vehicle signage or equipment identifying the funeral home, the ethics code says.

Carlson said she’s spoken with “ethical funeral directors” who support such a code because they are “truly dismayed by the bad apples in the barrel.”

Lehman and Pietryka believe Corcoran should ban the use of funeral directors as deputies or at least forbid them from responding to calls in their own neighborhoods or handling funerals for the same clients they serve as deputy coroners.

At minimum, the office should implement policies and train all deputies on how they avoid a conflict, such as the proper response they should provide when someone they visit as a deputy coroner asks if they could recommend a funeral home.

“If a funeral director goes out and handles the call, he or she should automatically decline the funeral business. You’ve just been paid by the county, and now you’re going to get paid privately? That should not be happening on the taxpayer dollar,” Pietryka said.