A high number of homicides and drug overdose deaths this year is pushing the workload of the Milwaukee County medical examiner's officeto record levels even as it is understaffed with employees working under "repellent" conditions, Chief Medical Examiner Brian Peterson said.

"In the past 10 years, drug overdose deaths are up 114%, homicides are up 54%, and our staff has been reduced 10%," Peterson said. "On top of that, our aging facility continues to crumble, requiring ever-increasing repair and maintenance funding."

Workers share basement hallways with rat traps, cockroaches, wood pallets stored for the next storm-water flooding incident, and the latest pieces of ceiling tiles or walls to fall.

The condition of the building has deteriorated to the extent that Peterson has been pushing county officials for a new home, perhaps moving to the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center in Wauwatosa.

Peterson was hired as the deputy chief medical examiner in 2008 and was appointed chief medical examiner in 2010. He previously worked in Waukesha County for one year after a career in forensic pathology with the U.S. Navy in San Diego.

The medical examiner's staff has been cut 14% since 2004, from 35 to 30, records show.

One forensic pathologist was added in recent months because of the overwhelming number of autopsies required to be done and the possible loss of national accreditation for the office due to the extreme workload, Peterson said.

The 2016 county budget provides funding for one additional autopsy assistant, for a total of three, to help shift bodies and perform other duties.

Peterson said his office needs one more assistant and two more death investigators.

Participating in crime scene investigations and performing autopsies are among the office's public safety services required under state law.

Those mandates, as well as other functions, such as issuing cremation permits and death certificates, are beyond his control and must be done, Peterson said.

The office is on track to complete a record-high number of autopsies — an estimated 1,004 — for sudden,unexpected or unusual deaths in Milwaukee County in 2015.

Pathologists had performed 926 autopsies as of Dec. 3. Deaths in homicide cases accounted for 151 of those autopsies, or 16.3%.

Four of the homicides were committed in county suburbs — one each in West Allis, Wauwatosa, Greenfield and Cudahy — while the remaining 147 are from the city of Milwaukee, Peterson said.

The Milwaukee Police Department is reporting 139 homicide victims so far this year.

The difference comes from police use of the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting system in its count.

As examples, the medical examiner counts a death as homicide if someone dies in a self-defense incident, or if a person is close to a shooting incident, or the victim of a robbery, and dies from heart failure.

The FBI would not count those deaths as homicides.

Deaths from narcotic drug overdoses accounted for 187 autopsies so far this year, or 20.1% of the total to date.

Causes of deaths in 368 of autopsies done this year to date turned out to be natural, records show.

The office also has completed 332 autopsies so far this year for Racine, Kenosha, Jefferson and Ozaukee counties under "fee for service" contracts.

"Despite facing significant challenges at their site and a greatly increased caseload, Dr. Peterson and his team are leaders in their field, making the medical examiner's office a resource to surrounding counties and a regional asset in public safety," County Executive Chris Abele said Friday.

Abele said he has approved investments in new laboratory equipment, such as digital X-ray machines, in the past five years.

"But the medical examiner's office could accomplish even more with state-of-the-art facilities," he said.

Abele and other county officials are discussing a partnership with the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center in Wauwatosa and the state Department of Administration, Abele said.

One option would be to share a building in Wauwatosa with the Milwaukee office of the State Crime Laboratory now on the city's south side. Peterson said he fully supports such a move.

The county medical examiner operates out of a one-story brick building at 933 W. Highland Ave.

Administrative offices and laboratories are on the first floor. A cluster of desks for crime scene investigators is located inside a security entrance.

Autopsies and body storage are done in the basement.

Whenever there is a sudden, unexpected or unusual death in the county, the body is brought to a dock at the basement level, and loaded onto a cart.

Concrete is breaking off the walls in the loading area. Water damage is visible on the dock ceiling, where long strands of paint and minerals leached from the ceiling hang down like cave stalactites.

First stop for a cart is a wood stick leaning against a wall — a 7-foot-long ruler — that is used to measure height of a body. No digital measuring tool here.

There is a temperature-controlled cooler used for body storage. Peterson calls it "the waiting room."

There are not enough carts for large numbers of bodies that might come in during busy weeks, so staff use military-style wood cots to accommodate any overflow.

Another door in the hallway opens to the autopsy rooms.

Odor from a decomposed body that was recently examined hangs in the air of the main room even though the work was done in an adjoining isolation autopsy room.

There is ventilation, but neither room is equipped with a system that draws air inside when a door opens. Such a state-of-the-art system is needed to prevent release of odors and the spread of infectious diseases, as well as flying insects from decomposed bodies, Peterson said.

The aging building, once part of the old St. Anthony Hospital, cannot be retrofitted for that type of system, however.

Suspended ceilings in the autopsy rooms also prevent installation of another common tool: a body lift.

"We've had up to 500-pound patients," Peterson said. Those bodies are difficult for any team to lift onto a cart, or shift and turn over during an autopsy, he said.

Don Behm reports on Milwaukee County government, Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District, the environment and communities in southeastern Wisconsin. He has won reporting awards for investigations of Great Lakes water pollution, Milwaukee's cryptosporidiosis outbreak, and the deaths of three sewer construction workers in a Menomonee Valley methane explosion.