The purpose of the kane county coroners office: maintaining accreditation and improvement of the workforce proposed project is to ultimately establish a more appropriate workload for deputy coroners…

The purpose of this $101,459 Project Grant awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance under the National Institute of Justice Research, Evaluation, and Development Project Grants program (CFDA 16.560) is to establish a Morgue Assistant position at the Kane County Coroner's Office. This position will assume morgue-related responsibilities such as assisting forensic pathologists during autopsies, managing morgue operations, and updating policies and procedures to maintain accreditation standards. By relieving Deputy Coroners of these duties, the project aims to increase their capacity for investigative and case-related work, minimize case backlogs, and enable Coroners to attend necessary training and continuing education. Ultimately, this project will help the Kane County Coroner's Office maintain its accreditation and improve workforce capacity to serve the local community. The grant period is from October 1, 2023 to September 30, 2026.

The purpose of the kane county coroners office: maintaining accreditation and improvement of the workforce proposed project is to ultimately establish a more appropriate workload for deputy coroners and maintain IAC & me accreditation standards. The kane county coroners office had to eliminate an autopsy technician position in 2022 due to budgetary restrictions. Therefore, the deputy coroners have been forced to take over the work previously allocated to said position, in addition to their investigative, case-related, and previously established collateral duties within the office. To combat this massive workload, this project proposes to hire a full-time morgue assistant to offset the excessive duties currently demanded of deputy coroners. The morgue assistant will be trained in and eventually assume all morgue-related responsibilities from the deputy coroners, including but not limited to: assisting forensic pathologists during autopsy; morgue-related cleaning, stocking, and ordering; sharps and hazardous waste handling; and intake and releasing of decedents and their property. Additionally, the morgue assistant will be working with the compliance and special projects coordinator to update and maintain policies, procedures, and practices relating to accreditation standards, as the kane county coroners office does not currently have a staff member designated for this duty. By implementing this project, deputy coroners will have a vast increase in the time available for investigative and case-related duties, and the kane county coroners office will successfully achieve RE-accreditation in 2025. Deputy coroners will be able to minimize the backlog of casework, which will in turn allow for the timelier completion and closing of cases, as well as provide much-needed relief from the stress deputy coroners experience when inundated with work. Additionally, with more time available to deputy coroners, they can attend relevant training and continuing education, a necessity for the dynamic and evolving nature of the work performed by a coroners office. With this, deputy coroners will be capable of carrying out more thorough and timely investigations, and also experience a much-needed break from high work-stress levels. This proposed project is not only beneficial to deputy coroners, but is also invaluable to the communities that the kane county coroners office serves and is a key piece of maintaining IAC & me accreditation.