Lack of resources in LA County coroner's office nothing new, ex-investigator says

A former Los Angeles County coroner investigator said Monday a lack of resources in the department dates back 40 years.

“They don’t have enough pathologists, they don’t have enough investigators,” said Vidal Herrera, who worked for the department in the late 1970s and ’80s. “This is an ongoing problem and the public are unaware.”

Herrera said he hurt his back while trying to lift a body. He blamed his injury on a lack of sufficient persoel responding to deaths and said his injury led the department to require more staff to transport bodies. Herrera retired from the county after his injury. Shortly after that, he and his wife started 1-800-AUTOPSY, a company that performs private autopsies.

Herrera said he was not surprised by complaints made by outgoing L.A. County Medical Examiner-Coroner Dr. Mark Fajardo, who resigned Friday.

“He’s a very good person. He’s a good doctor,” Herrera said of Fajardo. “It’s unfortunate that this is an ongoing problem.”

In an interview Friday, Fajardo said the department is in turmoil because he didn’t have enough money to run it smoothly.

He explained that 180 bodies had piled up in the county morgue and toxicology tests were taking six months to complete because he couldn’t get more funding from the Board of Supervisors to hire more employees.

Coroner’s office spokesman Ed Winter said Friday that the office is down about 20 staff positions from a year ago. Some physicians and investigators have left for other agencies. Others have been placed on medical leave. The department is actively recruiting for those vacancies, Winter said.

Fajardo said he asked the Board of Supervisors for additional money to hire more staff.

Budget documents show the coroner asked for 294 positions during this year’s budget deliberations. The department got funding for 224 positions.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors will meet in closed session today to discuss the vacancy left by Fajardo’s sudden resignation, as well as interim candidates.

Fajardo’s resignation takes effect April 15. He eaed $426,907 in total compensation in 2014, county records show.

He will retu to his job as coroner in Riverside County, the position he held before he was hired in L.A. County.

In 2012, his last full year working in Riverside County, Fajardo made $227,190 in total pay and benefits, records show.

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Historically, there has not been a lot of tuover in the L.A. County coroner’s office.

When Fajardo was hired in 2013, he was the first new coroner in decades and just the sixth since 1957.

The Board of Supervisors is also awaiting a report from the county CEO on an assessment of workload and response times in the coroner’s office.

The morale in the office has taken a hit amid the backlogs, said Herrera, the former coroner’s investigator.

“Everyday it continues,” Herrera said. “It keeps piling up.”