| FUND: GENERAL |
COMMUNITY SERVICES |
Tom Terry
As provided by section 59.34 of the Wisconsin Statutes, the
mission of the Medical Examiner’s office is to ensure the safety, health and
welfare of the community by identifying and documenting issues regarding public
health as well as the criminal justice system.
The office investigates all types of deaths within Racine County. The staff also
signs all the necessary papers for cremations, disinterments, death
certificates, and other documents related to death.
We also testify at various court trials when requested to do so.
We meet with agencies and families to review cases.
One of our goals was to upgrade our office computers. This
was partially completed in 2002.
We upgraded all our files and we also removed all photos from old cases and
placed them in a separate, locked file cabinet.
We performed more Toxicology studies and fewer autopsies. This was a cost saving
for those cases of approximately $1200 per case.
We also were able to send our staff to a number of outside training classes.
They shared the skills they acquired with the rest of us at in-service meetings.
We participated in several mass fatality tabletop programs to enhance our skill
levels.
We were able to change the way on-call Deputy Medical Examiners are paid. The
new plan enables us to pay more to those who do more and allowed us to hire more
deputies at less total cost to the County. Having more on-call Deputies means
that we can more easily find someone to cover a call, reducing the stress on
full-time staff.
