ESCANABA — The Delta County Board has opted to enter into an agreement with Dickinson County to share medical examiner services.

If the contract is reached, it would go into effect on Oct. 1 and save Delta County an estimated $20,000 a year, county officials said.

The current ME, Dr. Cary Gottleib, who also works as a pathologist for OSF, is preparing to retire. The deputy ME for Delta County, Dr. Martin Cristanelli, provides the same services for other parts of the Upper Peninsula and has expressed interest in taking over for Gottleib.

Medical examiners may be called upon to determine causes of death. Their work includes performing autopsies and reviewing forensic evidence, though autopsies are not always necessary.

Delta County now pays $42,000 a year to retain an ME — a $3,500 monthly fee, Delta County Administrator Emily DeSalvo told the board Sept. 2. The proposed contract with Dickinson County for Cristanelli’s services would be based on Delta County’s population size and would be substantially less expensive.

“It would be about $18,000 that we would pay up front annually for the services, and then, based on what types of autopsies are done — those are hard; we don’t we don’t know ahead of time for something like that — but the initial cost of it would be about cut in half,” DeSalvo said.

Cristanelli, a board-certified clinical and anatomical pathologist, has been Dickinson County’s medical examiner since 2012. Additional U.P. counties have contracted with Dickinson for his services, all of which are performed at a new facility in Kingsford.

Cristanelli said that he got together with the Dickinson County controller/administrator a few years ago and they decided to “centralize this autopsy service in the U.P. versus sending all the bodies downstate or wherever to get an autopsy done.”

A new morgue opened at the Ford Airport about a year and a half ago.

Until recently, several U.P. counties — Marquette, Gogebic, Alger and Schoolcraft — contracted with an operation downstate in Saginaw, Mich., called Michigan Institute of Forensic Science & Medicine. But that company has faced multiple scandals: Last year, a forensic pathologist contracted with them quit, claiming paychecks often bounced and employees weren’t being provided with health insurance they were paying for.

Saginaw County cancelled their contract with MIFSM in 2022 after discovering the owner was performing autopsies without the proper credentials.

More recently, the U.P. counties that had used MIFSM’s services backed out. MIFSM filed for bankruptcy in April. Marquette County struggled to get autopsy reports back from the Saginaw-based entity.

After leaving MIFSM, Gogebic ended up contracting with Midwest Medical Examiner’s Office out of Ramsey, Minn., but some of the others went more local — to the airport in Kingsford.

Now, Schoolcraft, Marquette and Iron counties are all contracted with Dickinson County for Cristanelli’s ME services. Cristanelli has been deputy ME for Delta County, filling in when Gottleib was out, and had expected to take over the county’s entire load when Gottleib retired.

When asked whether he could handle the workload for five counties, Cristanelli said he felt comfortable and prepared to take on the task.

“For one experienced guy — and I have plenty of experience — doing 100, 120, 130 autopsies in a year is absolutely doable,” Cristanelli said.

He estimated that by adding Delta County to his current duties he expects roughly 120 autopsies a year but acknowledged that, of course, deaths are not predictable.

The contract presented to the Delta County Board on Sept. 2 has Dickinson County, not Cristanelli himself, as the party responsible for providing ME services. If the doctor leaves the position, Dickinson County would still be obligated to provide an ME to Delta County.

While initial discussions had Gottleib staying on in Delta County through the end of the year, since things are already in motion, the new contract would begin on Oct. 1 to line up with the county’s fiscal year.

DeSalvo noted Gottleib’s many years of service in the area and said Delta County would be “sad to see him go.”