County mulls land purchase for morgue
By Kevin O’Brien Marathon County is poised to purchase 2.62 acres of land from Northcentral Technical College in Wausau and hire a forensic pathologist to prepare for construction of a new $14.8 million regional morgue later this year.
The county board on Tuesday discussed a pair of resolutions to buy the land for $400,000, and to hire a forensic pathologist at an estimated annual salary of just under $323,800. The resolutions will be voted on at an April 23 meeting.
At committee meetings last week, county administrator Lance Leonhard told supervisors that NTC was legally obligated to sell the land to the county at fair market value, but it will be putting $400,000 worth of technology back into the new facility as an in-kind contribution. Once the forensic science center opens, he said the county will partner with NTC to provide training for law enforcement, EMTs and criminal prosecutors.
The county also has a proposed partnership with the Medical College of Wisconsin to educate those interested in becoming forensic pathologists, Leonhard said.
Leonhard said the county expects to award a construction bid soon, so it needs to have the land purchase finalized before site work begins later this year on the 20,000-square-foot facility.
In addition to securing land for the forensic center, Leonhard said the county needs to hire a pathologist by September to serve as chief medical examiner at the new facility. This person will help set policies and procedures at the regional morgue and assist in hiring additional staff, including a chief deputy medical examiner, before the facility opens in 2025, he said.
“You don’t just hire the cook the day you open the restaurant,” he said at an April 10 Public Safety Committee meeting.
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The county has budgeted $135,000 to pay the forensic pathologist in the last four months of 2024, but the new position’s full annual salary will be finalized for the 2025 budget, according to the resolution passed by the board.
Later this year, the county will be transitioning to a physician-led medical examiner’s office, which will provide autopsy services for Marathon and multiple other counties in northeast Wisconsin, as well as in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Leonhard said the county’s plan is to make it budget neutral by collecting additional revenue from other counties and saving on the cost of sending bodies to southern Wisconsin for autopsies.
“We anticipate those additional reductions in expenses from autopsies sufficient to cover that cost,” he said.
Funding for the facility will come from a variety of sources, including $7 million from the state, $4.2 million from the county’s Social Improvement Fund (SIF), $1.2 million in donations and $2 million in federal funding recently secured through Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s office.
