Bodies left too long in the Pima County morgue may have to start paying rent.
To solve the problem of crowded storage facilities, the Forensic Science Center wants to charge a $75-per-day fee, said Chief Medical Examiner Gregory Hess.
The fee would apply only to those whose bodies have to go to the county medical examiner for an autopsy or other investigation due to the nature of their death. Even then, the fee would be assessed only to those who remain in county storage for too long.
Hess said he anticipates charging the fee only in rare cases, most commonly when a public fiduciary needs to be prodded to make decisions on burials for migrants and indigents. Many of those cases are from other counties for which Pima County provides services, and those counties would be responsible for the fees.
The Board of Supervisors will hold a hearing and vote on the proposed fee during its meeting this morning. If approved, the center could start charging the fees in December.
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There are two fee schedules: one for when private payers are responsible for the burial and one for when other governments are picking up the tab.
In the case of private burials, the Forensic Science Center would have the ability to charge funeral homes $75 a day to store a body, beginning three days after the center gives the OK to transfer the body from the morgue to the funeral home.
That isn't likely to happen often, John Chapman, general manager at Adair Funeral Homes, said, because bodies typically move faster than that since they need to be sent to the funeral home so it can begin its work.
But it can happen, he said, such as cases when the family of a decedent may avoid making a timely decision, especially if the person wasn't a close relative.
When that happens, the fees paid by the funeral home likely would be passed on to the family, he said.
The more likely situation where the fee would be imposed is when a public fiduciary is picking up the body and the bill, Hess said. In those cases, the fee would apply to bodies still in the morgue 30 days after the official notification that the body may be released from the center.
Several border counties in Arizona contract with the center to handle cases, and bodies of border crossers are the responsibility of the jurisdiction in which they are found, Hess said.
Contact reporter Becky Pallack at bpallack@azstarnet.com or 573-4346.
