Costs of burials are rising

Increases in labor, fuel, and salaries costs are behind increasing the city of Williston cemetery fees, which were last adjusted on July 1, 2005.

The Williston City Commission approved the increases at its Nov. 12 meeting for the city-owned Riverview and Hillside cemeteries.

"It's been a number of years since we've increased our fees at the cemetery and the cost of doing business in the cemetery is going up like anything else," said Commission President Ward Koeser in a recent phone interview.

Cemetery Commissioner Howard Klug said the decision to adjust the fees came after discovering the cemeteries were losing about $125 per burial.

"There is three ways of taking care of this problem: We can reduce expenses, which means less services, less watering, less maintenance; you can raise property taxes; or you can raise the fees required to use the cemetery," said Klug.

"I thought that this would be a good time to readjust our rates, so they were in line with our expenses and also the rates being charged by other cemeteries of comparable size throughout the state," Klug added.

The issue facing the city is reflected in the cemetery budget. The cemetery budget has a $99,988 cash balance, City Auditor John Kautzman said. Kautzman said the estimated cemetery revenues for 2009 are $139,500, while estimated expenses are $202,854, creating a $63,354 deficit.

Increasing the cemetery fees and using some of the cash balance should meet the financial needs of the cemeteries for 2009, Kautzman said, but not long term.

"We don't have a plan to be honest, other than to raise rates as costs go up," said Koeser. "We haven't come up with a plan B for funding of it."

Koeser added there is no guarantee that rates won't increase in the future.

Information on the rates being charged in other cities was gathered by Adrienne Stepanek, Riverview and Hillside cemeteries record specialist. Stepanek surveyed the rates at municipal cemeteries in Devils Lake, Dickinson, Mandan and Minot.

Bonnie Ripplinger, Rosehill Memorial Cemetery superintendent, also provided Stepanek with a similar survey for fees from Fargo and Grand Forks.

Upon reviewing this information, the city Cemetery Advisory Committee settled on the adopted fees during a Oct. 22 committee meeting.

Burial rights costs increased by $150 for standard and inner circle lots. Burial rights for infants and children, however, were not changed and remained at $200 per burial.

Burial rights for standard lots increased to $650 and the inner circle lots of the green acres addition to $700.

Opening and closing fees for adult burials increased to $575 from $450. These fees were also unchanged for infants and children's burials at $200.

There was also a $100 fee increase for opening and closing of earth burial cremains.

The disinterment charge for an adult grave was set a $750 from the previous $600, and the disinterment charge for an infant or child grave stayed at $300.

The additional fee for winter burials from October to April increased by $50 to $150.

Klug said winter burials is a service few cemeteries provide.

"In some places to get the closure that you need, you actually have to wait until the spring until people come back in," Klug said, adding part of the fee pays for road maintenance.

"It just costs a lot to operate a cemetery, and we want to keep a first-class operation going there," said Koeser. "We just felt that we needed to raise the fees if we are going to continue to have a first-class operation going."

These rate increases should also cover the replacement of irrigation pipes and water breaks at the Riverview Cemetery, which is experiencing problems with its irrigation system.

"People would think that the fees may be high, but when you look at other areas in North Dakota, they're reasonably the same," said Klug.