ALLEN COUNTY, Ind. (WANE) -- The Allen County Coroner’s Office gets called all hours of the day and night, and sometimes those callouts can last hours. This year, costs are increasing because of lengthier investigations needed in officer-involved shootings and high-speed fatal crashes, the county’s chief investigator Chris Meihls said. “This year, we’ve had seven officer-involved shootings and those take longer,” Meihls told the Allen County Council Thursday at the county budget hearing. “We’ve had more overtime because some of our scenes have just become more complicated." This year, the coroner’s budget ask is about $16,000 for a budget of $1.1 million for 2025, enough to cover lengthier investigations and the overtime required, among other items. Allen County Coroner Chief Investigator Chris Meihls appeared in front of Allen County Council with a modest request of $16,000 to cover lengthier investigations, overtime, holiday pay and autopsies. The department brings in $30,000 annually. Traffic crashes “seem to be at higher speeds and they’re getting to be more dramatic crashes, so it’s taking longer to process these scenes,” Meihls also said. In order to pay the overtime necessary for a staff of four full-time employees, plus the coroner and four part-time employees, the coroner’s office is requesting a total of $3,000 for overtime and $2,500 for holiday pay, both of which were previously covered by tapping into an unfilled administrative assistant part-time position. Now the position is being filled, but is only paying $12 an hour, pay that Meihls termed “inadequate.” The coroner’s office wants to boost that salary to $18.38 an hour and so is requesting an increase of $5,394. It’s not just the homicides, which are up this year, and fatal crashes but anyone who dies who doesn’t have a physician or the physician can’t get there in time. Then the coroner's office is required to show up. “It can be a hospital, nursing home or scene deaths, but we don’t go to the homicide unless they’re dead at the scene. Then we have to go,” Meihls said. Rare G.K. Chesterton essay on mystery writing is itself a mystery They do not have the habit of attending natural deaths or overdoses. “We don’t go to those scenes but they can be our cases, so we have to do a lot of phone work,” Meihls explained. The police answer deceased calls as well, probably 95% of them, said Meihls, who was a Fort Wayne police officer for 27 years, working patrol and crime scene.  “Someone gets ‘pronounced,’ they’re going to call police who work through a series of things – medical history, ailments, age and they try to find a physician who will sign that natural death. If not, then they've got to call the coroner’s office.” It can get more complicated. “If the doctor is willing to sign, but they haven’t chosen a funeral home, we have to transport and keep the decedent until they choose a funeral home,” Meihls explained. “We get involved where there’s no doctor to sign, so we have to keep the decedent until they find a doctor. Physicians typically don’t sign death certificates unless they’ve seen the person in the last year. "Some nights we get called every hour and then we have to come in and go to work for eight hours,” Meihls said. “If they can’t get a hold of the doctor at 2 in the morning, they call us.” As a salaried employee, Meihls said he doesn't keep track of his overtime, but stays after hours anyway, just to get paperwork done. The coroner will be charging more per autopsy - $100 more as of January 2025. A year ago, the office raised the price by $150 to $1,225 a homicide. Nevertheless, the agency is requesting an increase of $5,000 to cover autopsies, although Meihls pointed out that the office charges for autopsies of local deceased individuals when the incident occurs out of county. The coroner also brings in to the county coffers about $30,000 annually by charging insurance companies for information on verdicts, autopsy reports and toxicology reports, Meihls said. Compared to other counties, the autopsy fee here is much less, Meihls told the council. In Lake County, the cost is $5,000. In Toledo, Dayton and Columbus, the cost is $3000. So far this year, the office has performed 158 autopsies. Although the basic autopsy cost is $1,225, which will be $1,325 in January, autopsy costs go up an additional $500 for a homicide or a fatal crash and an additional $875 if a forensic neurologist has to be called in. Those are typically for child deaths and there have been nine this year, Meihls said. Last year, there were 30 homicides the office covered. This year, Allen County is already at 32, Meihls said. But the office performs autopsies on about half of the deceased cases they get calls on. Each year, about 2,500 people in Allen County die; in half of those the coroner’s office is notified, and half again, the coroner’s includes in their office autopsies or 625. Picking up the decedent is called a “removal,” and a private funeral home typically takes care of that. This year, there’ve been 245 removals with the total number estimated to reach 325. So far this year, the coroner’s office is reporting 60 fatal overdoses. In 2021 there were 177; 2022, 156 and last year, 120. The county also relies on seven unpaid volunteers right now, people who may want to work for the coroner’s office should a position open up. Most work full time at another job and are required to work 30 hours per year to maintain their volunteer status. They include a dentist, an RN and paramedics, Meihls said. "This year our cases are running neck to neck as last year, but just some of the cases are a little more complicated,” Meihls said. And then of course, costs of everything are going up.”