{"id":6696,"date":"2013-11-16T20:04:42","date_gmt":"2013-11-17T01:04:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=6696"},"modified":"2013-11-16T20:05:38","modified_gmt":"2013-11-17T01:05:38","slug":"coroner-responds-to-county-commission-about-budget-lcc-2013-11-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/11\/coroner-responds-to-county-commission-about-budget-lcc-2013-11-14.html","title":{"rendered":"Coroner responds to County Commission about budget @ LCC 2013-11-14"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nLike\r\n\r\nthe Sheriff<\/a>, the Coroner reports\r\nthat something’s rotten in the\r\n\r\nLowndes County Commission and staff’s version of his budget<\/a>.\r\n

\r\nDean Poling write for the VDT today,\r\n\r\nCoroner responds to county budget issues<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\nLowndes County Coroner Bill Watson explained Friday that comments\r\ncalling him one of the county budget’s “worst offenders”\r\ndid not explain why his office’s expenses change from year to year.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“I have no control over the number of people that dies each\r\nyear,” Watson told The Times, “and I have to fund the\r\ntransportation for autopsies. Any time there is an autopsy, it costs\r\nmy office about $750.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThese costs include the expense of having a body transported to a\r\nState Crime Lab for an autopsy and other fees.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nWatson estimates his office answers an average of 250 deaths per\r\nyear in Lowndes County. These deaths range from natural causes,\r\naccidents, homicides, unexplained circumstances, etc. Not all deaths\r\nare autopsied.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe coroner said the number of deaths requiring an autopsy to\r\ndetermine the cause of death changes from year to year.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nThe VDT got a clarification from County Manager Joe Pritchard:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nFor the purpose of budgeting the coroner’s office, Pritchard said\r\nFriday, the county must try predicting the number of bodies that\r\nmust be transported each year for autopsies. They look at the past\r\ntransport numbers to help make this determination, but an increase\r\nin requested autopsies can cause the coroner’s office to go over\r\nbudget.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nMaybe Pritchard should have clarified that\r\n\r\nin the county’s secretive retreat<\/a>\r\nor\r\n\r\nin Friday’s VDT article<\/a>.\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Like the Sheriff, the Coroner reports that something’s rotten in the Lowndes County Commission and staff’s version of his budget. Dean Poling write for the VDT today, Coroner responds to county budget issues, Lowndes County Coroner Bill Watson explained Friday that comments calling him one of the county budget’s “worst offenders” did not explain why […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2,72,20,88,52,3,133],"tags":[7236,6929,7240,381,2040,8701,8699,10,8730,8702,8710,91,12,7,8734,546,7235,8724,8700,6,8742],"class_list":["post-6696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-incarceration","category-law","category-lowndes-county-commission","category-splost","category-transparency","category-vdt","tag-14-november-2013","tag-autopsy","tag-bill-watson","tag-budget","tag-coroner","tag-georgia","tag-government","tag-gretchen-quarterman","tag-incarceration","tag-lake","tag-law","tag-lcc","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-lowndes-county-commission","tag-retreat","tag-retreat-work-session","tag-splost","tag-transparency","tag-valdosta","tag-vdt"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-1K0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6696"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6698,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6696\/revisions\/6698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}