The rising cost of filling up a tank of gas isn’t just something for working stiffs to complain about.
A Mission Viejo mortuary services company that fetches dead bodies and brings them to the county morgue wants more pay because of higher gas prices.
The company, Southwest Mortuary Services, is the only transport service that the county uses for moving bodies. The company is seeking a 27% increase per body, according to figures provided by the county.
The Board of Supervisors is going through the process of raising the cost of picking up a deceased body from the county morgue to $300 from the current $236. Relatives or others handling final arraignments pay the fee.
The higher costs likely would take effect in September, according to the current schedule of supervisor meetings.
The fee to collect funds is set by the coroner. It pays for taking a body from the place of death and keeping it until it is released to relatives or others.
“The company that we have contracted out for our services has raised prices,” said Jacque Berndt, Orange County’s chief deputy coroner. “Some of this is due to the rising cost of gasoline.”
Higher wages and benefits are other factors, she said. But gas is the big driver, according to Berndt.
Gas prices have doubled since Southwest Mortuary first started collecting bodies for the county, said Robin Marquez, general manager and vice president of the company.
“I’m just trying to keep my head above water,” Marquez said. “We were paying $1.70 a gallon when we started our contract with Orange County four years ago. Now we’re paying up to $3.30.”
Southwest Mortuary now imposes a surcharge to cover the extra expense, Marquez said.
“It’s absolutely hurting us. We are not able to forecast anything,” he said. “I just filled up a tank on my Suburban for $108, my all-time high.”
The average price of a gallon of unleaded gas in OC is about $3.20, still off about 17 cents from the all-time high hit in mid-May, according to Carol Thorp, spokeswoman with the Costa Mesa-based Automobile Club of Southern California. A year ago, the average price was 24% lower.
The county’s budget for the transport of bodies for the 12 months ending June 30, 2007, is $662,400.
That’s enough to collect some 2,000 bodies per year, Berndt said.
In the prior 12-month period, the county transported roughly 2,200 bodies, compared to about 2,100 the prior year.
For several decades, California law set the fee a coroner can charge for transporting a body at $100.
But another section of the law gives county supervisors discretion to raise the fee within reason. Coroners cannot charge to remove murder victims, children under 14 or indigents.
OC raised the fee to $119 in 1991 and to $236 in early 2003.
“Whenever we are allowed to recover funds, we do so,” Berndt said.
Southwest Mortuary operates 22 vans throughout Southern California. It has contracts with OC and San Bernardino County.
The 34-year-old company recently lost its contract to provide mortuary services to the coroner’s office in Riverside County.
The coroner’s office isn’t the only county department feeling higher gas prices.
The Resources & Development Management Department, which buys fuel in bulk and dispenses gasoline at county-owned fueling stations, is feeling the pinch.
The county added $600,000 to its transportation fuel fund in recent months to address higher gas costs.
“All of the current contracts we have for services and commodities have increased 12% to 18% at the time of renewal with the higher costs of fuel or petroleum products given as the reason,” said Bill Hisey, manager of Public Works/Operations and Maintenance.
“But we haven’t to date passed these costs on to our contract cities or modified our level of service,” he said.
Hisey’s fleet of 2,500 vehicles includes everything from sedans driven by maintenance workers to patrol cars in the Sheriff’s Department.
The department’s monthly cost for gasoline and diesel has jumped 71% from $141,000 in early 2004 to $240,700 in June. The number of gallons used fell 19% from 107,700 to 86,300 in the same period.
“We are looking at ways to reduce our costs so that we can maintain our current level of service,” Hisey said.
That includes using more vehicles that run on cheaper compressed natural gas, he said.
