The commissioners are working with Butler County Coroner William F. Young III to determine how best to complete a badly needed upgrade of the morgue.

The $2.5 million in the capital improvement budget has existed for some time, said commissioners Chairman Leslie Osche, but the commissioners are aware that Young's facility is overtaxed with the increased death rate due to overdose deaths related to the opioid crisis.

“We anticipate something coming within the next year,” Osche said of a fix for Young's space issues.

“Storing bodies over a period of time is a problem,” she said.

The county contracts with Young to use Young Funeral Home in Butler as a morgue. Young's office is in the former unemployment office west of the county prison.

Commissioner Kim Geyer said other factors have contributed to the necessity to expand the morgue.

“We are the fastest-growing county in not only Western Pennsylvania but the Commonwealth,” Geyer said. “Coupled with the opioid crisis, that is the combination (that affects the morgue).”

Young said the county has contracted with his family since 1970, when his father, the late William F. “Digger” Young, was the coroner.

The morgue at his funeral home can hold three bodies in refrigeration, and there have been times when that hasn't been enough space.

Many times the problem stems from the storage of bodies that have not been claimed.

“It's one of the saddest jobs ever,” Young said.

He said each suspected overdose in the county requires an autopsy, which includes toxicology tests on blood and bile in the gall bladder.

The body is normally cremated or buried in three to five days, and the “tox tests” do not come back for two to three weeks, Young said.

Young said forensic scientists are brought in from Pittsburgh and Erie to perform the autopsies, which cost an average of $2,000 each.

Bodies that go unclaimed are sent to a mortuary school in Pittsburgh to be embalmed so Young has more time to try to find the deceased's next of kin.

If it remains unclaimed, Young must petition the court to dispose of the body.

When that is granted, the body is cremated and held by Young for three to four years.

If it is still unclaimed, Young has the cremains buried in a lot at the Sunnyview complex south of Butler.

He said 2017 was the busiest year he can remember at the morgue.

“It's because of the drugs,” Young said.

Regarding plans for a morgue facility, he said he would like a complete facility with the morgue and office in one building.

He said the expenditure would be sure to serve the county indefinitely.

“It's not like people are going to stop dying,” Young said. “It's for the future of the county.”