Drafter
Clerk 08/20/2015
Title
AN ORDINANCE relating to the fee for certain medical examiner services; and amending Ordinance 17733, Section 16, and K.C.C. 4A.650.150.
Body
STATEMENT OF FACTS:
1. In November 2007, the council adopted Ordinance 15952, which prohibited cremation of the body of a decedent who died in the county without first reporting the death to the medical examiner's office and receiving authorization for cremation.
2. Additionally, Ordinance 15952 established a fifty-dollar cremation permit fee, effective January 1, 2008.
3. Ordinance 15952, Section 2, was codified as K.C.C. 2.24.135.
4. In November 2010, the council adopted Ordinance 16973, which amended K.C.C. 2.24.135 and expanded the reporting and authorization requirement to burials or other dispositions of bodies and renamed the fee a body disposition permit fee.
5. In November 2013, the council adopted Ordinance 17692, which amended K.C.C. 2.24.135 and increased the body disposition permit fee to sixty dollars.
6. In January 2014, the council adopted Ordinance 17733, which created a new chapter on public health duties in K.C.C. Title 2.
7. Ordinance 17733 also recodified the body disposition fee amount from K.C.C. 2.24.135 to K.C.C. 4A.650.150.
8. The recodification of the fee amount was accomplished in two sections of Ordinance 17733.
9. First, Ordinance 17733, Section 15, amended K.C.C. 2.24.135.B.1 as follows: "A person reporting a death to the medical examiner’s office of a person whose remains are to be buried, cremated or otherwise disposed shall be charged ((a)) the fee ((of fifty dollars)) in section 16 of this ordinance."
10. Second, Ordinance 17733, Section 16, added to K.C.C. chapter 4A.650 a new section to read as follows: "A person reporting a death to the medical examiner’s office of a person who remains are to be buried, cremated or otherwise disposed under K.C.C. 2.24.135, as recodified by this ordinance, shall be charged a fee of fifty dollars."
11. Ordinance 17733, Section 15, incorrectly displayed "fifty dollars" as the current authorized fee. At the end of 2013, by Ordinance 17692, the authorized fee had been increased to sixty dollars.
12. The intent of Ordinance 17733 was to move the authorized fee from K.C.C. chapter 2.24, not to amend the amount of the fee.
13. Due to a drafting inaccuracy, the fee amount in Ordinance 17733 inadvertently remained fifty dollars and did not reflect the amount that the council had previously adopted just a few months earlier and that was in effect at the time Ordinance 17733 was adopted.
BE IT ORDAINED BY THE COUNCIL OF KING COUNTY:
SECTION 1. It is the council's intent to clarify the law to reflect that the body disposition permit fee has been sixty dollars since January 1, 2014, the effective date of Ordinance 17692.
SECTION 2. Ordinance 17733, Section 16, and K.C.C. 4A.650.150 are each hereby amended to read as follows:
A person reporting a death to the medical examiner’s office of a person whose
remains are to be buried, cremated or otherwise disposed under K.C.C. 2.35A.090, shall be charged a fee of ((fifty)) sixty dollars.