Arapahoe County’s incoming coroner asks for $377,716 salary; no vote taken yet
At a June 9 study session, incoming coroner Dr. Casey Bitting said her office faces a forensic-pathologist vacancy, overdose caseload pressures and accreditation workload limits, but commissioners did not take formal action on her pay request.
Arapahoe County commissioners did not take formal action during a June 9 study session after incoming coroner Dr. Casey Bitting asked that the position’s salary for the next term be set at $377,715.84.
Instead, commissioners indicated they understood the request and would continue discussing it, leaving unresolved whether the county will approve the full increase, negotiate a smaller change or leave pay unchanged.
The request matters beyond compensation because Bitting told commissioners during the study session that the coroner’s office is dealing with a nationwide forensic-pathologist shortage, an unfilled forensic-pathologist position and rising death-investigation demands tied in part to fentanyl and other overdoses. The study-session agenda listed the item as compensation for the appointed Arapahoe County coroner and included a draft memorandum of understanding on coroner compensation.
Bitting also told commissioners that compensation affects the county’s ability to recruit and retain the medical staff needed to support a third forensic pathologist and stay within workload limits tied to accreditation.
That accreditation issue has shown up in the office’s own reporting. Arapahoe County’s 2024 annual coroner report says the office is one of four coroner offices in Colorado accredited by the National Association of Medical Examiners. The same report says accidental overdoses remained the county’s largest category of accidental deaths in 2024, with 176 drug-overdose deaths among 387 accidental fatalities.
The 2023 annual report likewise said overdoses accounted for 211 of 448 accidental fatalities, while the 2022 report described the office as nationally accredited and tracking turnaround and workload measures as part of that status.
How the requested pay compares with peers is less straightforward because Colorado counties organize coroner and medical-examiner functions differently. Still, the proposal would fall below Denver’s listed 2026 salary for its chief medical examiner and coroner, $388,473.48, and above Denver’s listed forensic-pathologist pay range of about $245,894 to $269,128. In El Paso County, the 2024 adopted budget shows a larger coroner system with 28 authorized positions and roughly 6,750 deaths investigated, and budgeted about $169,021 for one new medical-examiner position added midyear.
What the public record does not show is whether the staffing strain has already caused an immediate service failure. Arapahoe’s annual reports describe a heavily used office with court-testimony, toxicology, reporting and death-certification duties, and Bitting said in the June 9 session that the office is managing an open forensic-pathologist vacancy and accreditation workload limits. But the public June 9 record does not document missed statutory deadlines, a loss of accreditation or a formal finding that the office is out of compliance.