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Dr. Nancy Jones, Cook County's medical examiner, is retiring at the end of July, sources say.

Her departure, and the start of a search for her replacement, are expected to be announced this morning by Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle. The changes come in the wake of problems at the county morgue, which falls under the purview of the medical examiner, the county’s chief forensic pathologist.

The first-term board president plans too  “announce changes in personnel, policy and procedure at the Cook County medical examiner’s office,” according to an advisory Preckwinkle’s press office issued Monday evening. The administration declined to elaborate.

In January, Jones came under criticism for a backup of bodies in the morgue cooler. Preckwinkle aides found that 363 bodies were stored in a cooler designed to hold 300. The county blamed that mostly on the state suspended funding for indigent burials.

“I expect there will be people that lose their jobs,” Preckwinkle said that month as she announced new rules to ensure limits on the number of bodies at the facility. In February, two morgue employees were fired and one was disciplined. Preckwinkle also sent in a top aide to monitor the medical examiner’s office that runs the morgue.

Jones, the county’s chief forensic pathologist, was appointed in 2007 to an open-ended term by then-Board President Todd Stroger and could only be fired “for cause.”

In March, the board set a five-year term and clear rules for firing the county medical examiner. The new rules also allowed Preckwinkle to request that the medical examiner be removed for “negligence, malfeasance, misfeasance, immoral, illegal or unethical conduct, or failure to properly execute the duties of such position.”

People familiar with the operations of Jones’ office say she is a fine pathologist, but some have questioned her management skills.

In late April, a burial ceremony was held at Mount Olivet Catholic Cemetery after theArchdiocese of Chicago's Catholic Cemeteries offered up graves following the situation at the morgue.