Cemeteries

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While the greater public sentiment has turned against statues honoring the Confederacy, cemetery operators should anticipate a counter-challenge to the removal of a Lost Cause monument.  Support for the Lost Cause monument can be just as fervent as the calls for its removal.  With emotions running high in both directions, the removal of the Lost…

If a racial justice challenge is made against a Lost Cause monument, the cemetery’s regulations typically vest authority in the cemetery to remove monuments deemed offensive.   Through their rules and regulations, cemeteries reserve the authority to deem what is, or is not, offensive.  The following were taken from cemetery websites found through a Google search…

Financial relief is coming to Missouri counties with cemeteries.  House Bill 443 would allow county commissioners to withdraw principal from perpetual care funds to pay for cemetery maintenance.   When combined with the authorities granted counties four years ago by HB 51, Missouri county commissioners can now diversify cemetery perpetual care trusts and restate those trusts…

In our prior post, we recommended that the Evergreen Cemetery Association explore the Minnesota trust code provisions regarding the trustee’s power to adjust (501C.1112).  This is something other “excluded” cemeteries should also consider.  By excluded, we mean cemeteries owned by associations, churches, cities or counties that are typically excluded from regulation of…

The Funeral Director Daily recently wrote about the Evergreen Cemetery Association in Brainerd, Minnesota.  Like so many cemeteries, Evergreen is running a deficit and its board is worried about the future.  The Funeral Director Daily suggests the situation cries out for a relaxation of government restrictions over the Association’s care fund.  If the cemetery could…

In our next post on cemetery preneed, we want to revisit a post from June 2012 (Cemetery Preneed Challenges: bucket accounting).  As discussed in that post, the cemetery prearrangement differs from its funeral counterpart because the cemetery can deliver property and merchandise prior to the purchaser’s death.  When establishing a preneed program, a…

While preserving traditional burials should be a cemetery’s top preneed priority, a priority should also be placed on the surviving lot owner that is opting for cremation.  The Wirthlin studies that we’ve been referencing in prior posts suggest that most grave spaces sold by cemeteries during the past 20 years will never be used.  One…