Bodies are piling up in the Los Angeles County morgue, autopsies and toxicology reports are being delayed, the outgoing coroner said Friday after he resigned.

Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner Dr. Mark Fajardo submitted his resignation Friday and will return to his old job next month as Riverside County’s chief forensic pathologist, he said during an interview later in the day. His resignation is effective April 15.

Fajardo insists he is leaving because his department is in turmoil because of funding cuts.

He said 180 bodies are waiting to be processed at the morgue and it takes six months for toxicology reports to be completed.

“It’s nuts,” he said, adding it was common to have 40 to 50 bodies waiting to be processed.

“It’s been progressing for a number of months now,” he said of the backlogs.

When there is a backlog in the toxicology lab, the coroner cannot make a ruling on cases, so they remain open.

Reaction was muted among county officials Friday, a day after KCAL Channel 9 first reported that Fajardo was resigning under scrutiny and mismanagement in the department’s toxicology lab that has led to a backlog of cases.

In February, the Board of Supervisors asked the medical-examiner coroner to work with the county CEO’s office to conduct an assessment of workload and response times.

“As this is an ongoing personnel matter, the CEO will not have a comment at this time,” county spokesman David Sommers said in an email.

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Supervisor Michael Antonovich released a statement Friday afternoon addressing the issue.

“This is an ongoing personnel matter, however, the board is committed to ensuring that the coroner has and continues to have the resources necessary to fulfill its obligation to the residents of Los Angeles County,” he said.

Fajardo earned $426,907 in salary and benefits in 2014, county records show. In his last full year working in Riverside County in 2012, Fajardo made $227,190 in total pay and benefits, records show.

Cuts and vacancies

Coroner Assistant Chief Ed Winter said the department is short staffed due to some criminalists and physicians leaving for other agencies and a staffer taking medical leaves. He said the department has about 200 employees, down from 220 employees about a year ago. He explained the department is trying to fill those positions.

Documents show the coroner’s office made additional budget and staffing requests.

During this year’s budget deliberations, the coroner asked for 294 positions, budget documents show. The department received a reduction of 20 volunteer positions for a total of 224 budgeted positions.

Documents show the department requested a $42.7 million budget this fiscal year. The recommended budget was $32.4 million, which was $3.2 million less than the previous year.

The reduction in budget was due to a deletion of one-time funds for an electronic filing system in 2014 and a reduction in capital assets, according to budget documents.

In fiscal 2013-14, the department’s budget was $31.8 million.

There are several vacancies in top positions in the coroner’s office administration as well.

Former Chief of Coroner Investigations Craig Harvey retired in August. That position is filled on an interim basis.

The former chief of the forensic laboratory, Joe Muto, retired a year ago. That position also is filled on an interim basis. And there is a person serving in an acting role over the public services division.

“Obviously Dr. Fajardo took the reins at a tough time,” said former coroner investigator Scott Carrier, who retired in 2002. “I am certain that the case load has increased, and the case load was heavy back when I was the spokesman of the department.”

Delays affect families

About 78,000 to 80,000 people die in Los Angeles County each year. The coroner’s office investigates about 22,000 to 25,000 of those deaths.

The coroner determines the cause and manner of death. The deaths are then ruled homicides, suicides, accidental or natural causes.

Winter said the department performs about 25 to 30 autopsies a day.

Fajardo said the delays have an effect on families of loved ones who have died and on the criminal justice system.

“They just want timely answers as to why their loved ones passed away,” he said.

Fajardo said he knows of one family who is at risk of going into foreclosure on their house because they have taken out loans against pending life insurance policies to pay for funeral services but do not have the death certificate.

He said judges have called his department into court asking about delays in closing cases.

Several audits of the coroner’s office since 2002 have shown some fiscal and management issues. The auditor-controller noted in a follow-up audit in 2014 that of 10 fiscal and five management-related recommendations from previous audits, the department had only fully implemented three recommendations. The original audit made 63 recommendations regarding internal controls and compliance with fiscal policies and 43 recommendations on the management end.

When Fajardo was hired in 2013, he was the first new coroner in decades and just the sixth coroner since 1957. Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran served as the coroner for 21 years when he retired in 2013. When Fajardo was hired, the supervisors combined two separate department head positions within the coroner’s office — one a chief medical examiner-coroner, the other an administrator. It was set up that way for decades to prevent the kind of mismanagement that occurred in the 1970s and 1980s, including autopsy backlogs, insect infestations in the morgue and a double-billing scam by employees.