Even when the need for reform is apparent to all, the legislative process can take years. With the Michigan Senate having approved a House substitute, that state’s cemeteries are a step closer to reform that could have avoided Clayton Smart’s pillaging of $70 million dollars of endowed care funds.
Grandview Memorial Gardens: Round up the suspects
By Bill Stalter on
The families of those buried at Grandview Memorial Gardens are angry. First they are advised that the trusts meant to fund future burials and the care for those graves are not properly funded. Next, they learn that some of the cemetery’s gardens have a problem with grave spaces flooding with water. When Indiana regulators and…
Kentucky Perpetual Care legislation – Proceed to Go and collect $200
By Bill Stalter on
Posted in Cemeteries, Legislation
Kentucky’s city administrators claim that with House Bill 369 they can now see the light at the end of the tunnel. For the past 20 years, municipal cemeteries in the Blue Grass State have been forced to operate under the same rules that apply to commercial cemeteries when it came to perpetual care funding. For that…
Cemetery Oversight – Delaware Legislation
By Bill Stalter on
Posted in Cemeteries
For the second time in 7 years, the Delaware legislature is taking up the issue of cemetery oversight. As with most death care legislation, Delaware’s Cemetery Study Committee faces two hurdles: finding answers for aging cemeteries that lack revenues for maintenance, and reconciling the conflicting goals of cemeterians, funeral homes, monument vendors, local governments and the public. …