Democrats want to maintain control of Bucks County, but they’re fighting over the coroner’s office

Allegations of “sabotage” and secret government meetings. Clashes over staff. A protracted budget brawl.

It sounds like a classic local partisan feud between Democrats and Republicans. But in Bucks County, the tension is actually between fellow Democrats. And it’s focused on a usually low-profile office: the county coroner.

The intraparty feud comes just three years after the party won control of Bucks County government for the first time in decades. Democrats also flipped Delaware and Chester Counties in 2019 and now control all four of Philadelphia’s collar counties.

The dispute in Bucks County reflects the growing pains that sometimes surface as a party that recently gained power learns how to govern. Some Democrats worry the friendly fire is distracting from their efforts to win reelection against a local GOP that’s proven resilient even while out of power.

The coroner’s office — an elected position that handles death investigations, performs autopsies, and assists the district attorney — isn’t usually the subject of political intrigue.

That changed after the coroner, Democrat Meredith Buck, filed a lawsuit in 2021 alleging the three-member commissioners board, led by Democrat Diane Ellis-Marseglia, slashed her department’s budget in an act of retaliation. The cuts came without notice and threatened public health in the middle of the pandemic, the suit alleged.

The county said services weren’t at risk and the coroner’s budget was being parceled out in one-third increments over the course of the year due to “concerns about the management of her office,” as solicitor Joe Khan put it during a commissioners meeting last year.

A judge dismissed the case last fall, but the litigation is still ongoing after an appeals court sided with the coroner on a procedural issue.

With the Democratic commissioners at odds with a Democratic row officer, party officials intervened. Party leaders including chair Steve Santarsiero, a state senator, circulated a letter last week encouraging Bucks County Democrats to endorse a rival candidate, Patti Campi, over the incumbent for coroner at their March 4 convention. The primary election is May 16.

“Any disunity among our candidates provides a clear opportunity for Republicans to distract from the progress Bucks County has made under Democratic leadership,” the letter reads.

Though Republicans lost control of the commissioners board in 2019, they won several row office elections two years ago. And relative to Republicans in Philadelphia’s other suburban collar counties on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River, the Bucks GOP has had more success in federal, state, and local elections in recent years.

For her part, Buck, an attorney and registered nurse from Chalfont, said party leaders tried to induce her to forgo a reelection bid.

“But I said no,” she said.

As for her record in office, Buck said she successfully managed a higher caseload associated with the pandemic, increased capacity at the morgue, and reopened cases so that unclaimed decedents could be reunited with their loved ones.

“Coroners are independent elected officials. They don’t report to county commissioners. They are responsible to the electorate,” said Christina VandePol, a former Chester County coroner who’s now Buck’s deputy. “The independence of the office, because of what it does — death investigations — is a very important principle.”

The whole thing started, Buck says, a couple of months after she took office.

Flooding affected the office’s security system and computers, and the department needed more staff. Buck said she conveyed that to the commissioners.

On March 2, 2020, Buck received an email from Ellis-Marseglia saying she wanted a top aide, Eric Nagy, to interview the coroner’s staff, according to court records. “In order to get you the staff and the services … we are going to need to make a solid case. That case needs to be clear to the public ... and any political opponents,” the email said.

Nagy, she said, would be able to make an “independent” and “credible” assessment of the office’s needs.

Buck responded that she was capable of doing that herself and that such a visit would be “disruptive.”

“This is not helping and I have to put my foot down,” Buck wrote.

Ellis-Marseglia, first elected to the board in 2007, replied: “First of all, I am a Commissioner. I am not asking. I am telling. If you continue then I guess you will need to worry about a budget and how to pay staff and how to get new computer systems. … We are not approving ANYTHING for you until this is done.”

In an interview, Buck said she eventually agreed to let Nagy interview her staff. She initially resisted because, Buck said, she saw the request as political in nature — days earlier, the Bucks GOP had issued a news release questioning the hiring of Nagy, the Bucks Democrats’ campaign manager.

It’s common for former campaign aides to enter government. But Buck said she thinks Ellis-Marseglia wanted to “justify” Nagy’s hiring.

Buck also said Ellis-Marseglia had recommended someone to be her chief deputy. Buck interviewed the person — whom she would only identify as a previous Democratic candidate for coroner — and said he “wasn’t the right fit.”

To Buck, things appeared to be back on track — the coronavirus pandemic notwithstanding — until December 2020, when the commissioners adopted a budget for the coming year that slashed the coroner’s funding by more than $1 million, or 67% from the prior year’s $1.5 million allocation.

Buck hadn’t been notified of major cuts and only learned about it weeks later, according to court records.

Buck filed the lawsuit in March 2021, alleging the commissioners were attempting to “sabotage” her office’s operations. An amended suit accused the commissioners of violating state law about budgeting and of deliberating about the budget in illegal secret meetings.

At the time, the county said the coroner’s funding would be allocated in thirds.

A Common Pleas Court judge dismissed the bulk of the case in September 2021. He dismissed the remaining count in October 2022, saying the coroner failed to produce evidence that the commissioners had deliberated in secret about the budget — an allegation they denied.

The commissioners have refrained from commenting, citing the litigation. But Khan, the county solicitor, said the county had concerns about the coroner’s management.

Khan said Buck, unlike every other department head, had failed to submit monthly budget assessments. So in late 2020 the chief financial officer recommended the commissioners “dole out her funding over the course” of the year to enable close oversight, Khan said at an October 2022 commissioners meeting after the suit was dismissed.

“These commissioners are not afraid of a fight, nor will they be bullied,” Khan said. “They have steel in their spines.”

In a statement, county CFO David Boscola said the coroner’s failure to submit regular budget reports continues to this day, leaving officials “at a loss as to the financial position of that office.”

County officials have also raised concerns about turnover in the coroner’s office, which has 13 positions, according to sources familiar with the matter. Personnel records show there have been five different chief deputies during Buck’s tenure, with several lasting in the job for just a couple of months.

Of the 14 staffers hired since Buck took office, more than half have since left, records show.

Buck denied a systemic problem regarding her finance reports, saying there were no such issues in 2020 and she only had difficulty conducting a budget analysis when her funding was cut. She accused the county of concocting an explanation for the budget cut after the fact.

As for staff turnover, Buck said it was nothing unusual for an office that requires “someone being able to handle death on a daily basis.”

“Were there some disgruntled ones? Absolutely,” Buck said. “Did somebody throw their badge at me on the way out? Absolutely.”

A Commonwealth Court panel in November ruled the lower court had erred on a procedural matter, so the litigation continues. Buck is seeking a court order that would require the commissioners to “fully and adequately fund” the coroner’s office on an annual basis going forward.

But Buck told fellow Democrats in a letter last week that she’s “willing to commit to withdrawing the suit as a gesture of good faith.”

“I didn’t bring it because I have any animosity toward anybody,” she said in the interview. “I brought it because I have a job to do.”