By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
ROCKFORD — The conversation isn’t new. The circumstances are.
Illinois law allows for voters to remove the elected office of corner and instead have an appointed professional such as a medical examiner handle the county’s death investigations.
The argument for such a move is typically that coroner is an elected position with no required qualifications, and often laypersons elected to the job must outsource to a pathologist or other doctor to conduct autopsies. Hiring a full-time professional and eliminating the elected role could save taxpayers money, proponents argue.
A new reason to consider it emerged over the past year when Winnebago County Coroner Bill Hintz was charged with theft, forgery and official misconduct and then ignored calls to step down. There’s no mechanism to remove the coroner from office or place him on leave unless he is convicted. But an appointed employee could be more easily suspended while awaiting trial.
“I’m sure this situation may motivate additional discussion,” said state Sen. Steve Stadelman, who is working with other local lawmakers to research legislation that would allow an elected official to be relieved from his or her duties if they face significant criminal charges.
Voter approval required
Winnebago County Board Chairman Joe Chiarelli said there was some discussion about switching to an appointed professional, but he declined further comment.
“We’re playing it one step at a time,” said Chiarelli, who earlier this month locked Hintz out of his county offices and email.
Voters would have to approve a referendum in order to switch to an appointed professional. There’s few counties that do so, said Lynn Reed, the Republican coroner from the Moultrie County who has organized continuing education for coroners in Illinois for nearly three decades.
“If you want to have the argument that it should be appointed, then maybe we should say, well, we need to appoint the sheriff and the county clerk and the treasurer,” said Reed, who was first elected in 1980. “We’ve read at different times in all those different disciplines of elected officials there’s been things come up where something bad has happened and the person has had to leave office.”
Reed counts seven of Illinois’ 102 counties with an appointed professional instead of an elected coroner: Brown, Menard, Piatt, Pope, Scott, Stark and Chicago’s Cook County. Most are smaller counties that don’t handle many death investigations, Reed said.
“I’m just a believe in the electoral process and the voters having a right to make those decisions,” Reed said.
McHenry County voters were asked in November 2020 to consider making the coroner’s job an appointed role, but nearly 63% of voters were against the change. McHenry County State’s Attorney Patrick Kenneally and former County Board Chairman Jack Franks had pushed for the change, arguing it could bring more professionalism and efficiency to the office, according to Shaw Media.
‘A character flaw is a character flaw’
Winnebago County Board member Jean Crosby said that while having the role appointed would give the board better oversight over taxpayers’ dollars, voters should pick the coroner.
“You can have someone that’s either elected or appointed and still embezzle,” Crosby said. “A character flaw is a character flaw is a character flaw. It can happen under either leadership. That doesn’t cure it.”
Winnebago County has dealt with embezzlement from an appointed employee. In September 2016, former purchasing director Sally Claassen was sentenced to two years in federal prison for embezzling more than $400,000 from the county.
State Sen. Dave Syverson said it’s important to work on legislation that would allow for suspension of any elected official rather than targeting the coroner’s office specifically through a referendum.
“That issue comes up all the time and it becomes more of a political issue. Counties that like their coroner, or if their party controls the coroner’s office, they like to keep it that way,” Syverson said. “This issue is much bigger than a coroner because this could’ve happened in a clerk’s office, this could have happened to a person who’s in charge of doing contracts or a clerk or a treasurer.”
This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on Twitter at @KevinMHaas.