Due to a high number of autopsies, the Kootenai County commissioners have injected an extra $50,000 into the coroner's budget to make it to the end of the fiscal year next month.

"She told us what she had for current payables and what was projected through September," said Commissioner Jai Nelson.

The budget for autopsies will also increase next fiscal year, from this year's $135,000 to $150,000.

The commissioners want to take a closer look at the coroner's expenditures, Nelson added.

They have asked Debbie Wilkey, serving her first year as coroner, to meet with them and provide statistics on the percentage of autopsies to deaths, Nelson said.

"We did question the number of autopsies she's doing and if it's appropriate," Nelson said.

Nelson also wonders if there is a less costly method of conducting some autopsies, she added.

"If someone has a full head injury, we don't need to be looking at their abdomen," said Nelson, a registered nurse.

"I asked if we can look at that contract and can do more of a focused contract."

County autopsies are performed by the Spokane County Medical Examiner's Office, the closest availability of forensic pathologists.

Wilkey said all the autopsies under her authority have been necessary.

There have been a high number of deaths both in 2010 and this year, she said, adding that each autopsy costs roughly $2,200.

"I don't know if it was the long winter, but there was an extraordinary number of deaths that happened in the last weeks of April, and pretty much all of May and June," said Wilkey, who was elected last November and took office in the middle of the fiscal year in January. "The number of calls was significant."

The county inherits some deaths from out of the area, she said. Non-residents who die while being treated at local health care facilities, for instance, are still counted as county deaths.

Preceding Coroner Dr. Robert West had requested more than $150,000 for autopsies this fiscal year, Wilkey added, but was given less.

"I believed $135,000 was going to be fine, and it just wasn't," she said.

West, coroner for two decades before retiring in January, said he hadn't expected the budgeted amount this fiscal year to suffice.

"It was pretty apparent from my mid-year projections that we were going to be over that," West said.

He has consulted with Wilkey about every autopsy this year, he added, and he agrees all were justified.

He noted that Wilkey, previously deputy coroner, is a registered nurse with a master's degree in forensic anthropology.

"She is not just flying by the seat of her pants ordering autopsies," said West, himself a surgeon.

Autopsies are difficult to budget for, he added, due to variables on when the procedure is needed.

They are commonly used in situations with drug overdose, unexpected infant deaths, homicides and unexplained deaths, he said.

It is the coroner's discretion when to call for an autopsy, he added.

"It's the same thing as the sheriff's department. If the sheriff's has an extra 30 arrests and has to house them out of county, those costs have to be paid," West said.

The county usually sees between 1,000 and 1,200 deaths a year.

Wilkey didn't respond to voicemails or emails about how many autopsies have recently been conducted. The commissioners have requested she present those figures for the fiscal year soon.

West was reluctant to support pursuing less comprehensive autopsies, or fewer.

Neglecting to do an autopsy if anything is uncertain, he said, leaves the county open to lawsuits.

"The most expensive autopsy is the one that you don't do, that you should've done before you buried somebody," he said.