Osceola County board discusses $2.50 medical-examiner investigator fee split, plans follow-up with medical examiner

Osceola County board members spent part of their meeting debating how to allocate a $2.50 fee paid for medical-examiner investigations and agreed to meet with the county medical examiner before making a formal change.

Board members said the current practice has been to split the $2.50 evenly between the medical examiner and investigators. The county’s medical examiner, Dr. Koster, and board members have reported instances where the examiner recommended a different split depending on the workload; board members referenced examples in which an investigator received $1.50 and the examiner $1.00 in certain cases.

Board members expressed concern about making a departmental allocation decision without the department head present. One board member said the medical examiner had submitted case-level recommendations in the past and that some cases were “case dependent on the workload.” Several members said they would prefer discussing the issue with the medical examiner before changing the policy and that an informal conversation or a short special meeting might suffice.

The board asked staff to contact Dr. Koster and arranged for a possible meeting; one member said they would meet with the medical examiner at 12:30 the same day and invited other board members to join. No motion to change the fee split was made; members framed the item as discussion and direction to staff to obtain the medical examiner’s input and return with a recommendation.

The board noted scheduling constraints (many Tuesdays) but agreed it would be acceptable to convene a brief meeting on a mutually available date if the medical examiner preferred to attend.

Looking ahead, the board said it would revisit the matter once they had the medical examiner’s recommended protocol and any case-level examples to inform whether the $2.50 should remain evenly split or be allocated on a case-by-case basis.