CHENANGO COUNTY – With a projection of more than $200,000 spent on indigent burials by the end of the year, county officials have implemented a new indigent burial and cremation policy which they hope will cover essential funeral services for the impoverished without being too much a burden on the local tax base.
The new policy was passed unanimously by the Chenango County Board of Supervisors this month. In addition to changes to the financial eligibility for indigent funeral services, the policy allows the county to pay for only direct funeral and cremation services, and further requires that funeral homes contract with the Chenango County Department of Social Services in order to be paid for their services. For funeral homes that don’t contract with the county, DSS will pay for transport of the deceased to a local funeral home that does choose to contract.
“We changed it from full service burial and full service cremation to direct burial and direct cremation,” said Chenango DSS Commissioner Bette Osborne at a meeting of the Chenango County Board of Supervisors last week. “That’s one of the major changes.”
The policy also stipulates that those eligible for indigent burial services must have no more than $1,500 in liquid assets. The county will foot $1,500 for a direct burial services and an additional $1,000 for purchase of plot and opening and closing of the grave (approximately $1,700 less than what was paid under the previous policy).
For cremation, the county will pay funeral homes up to $1,000 for direct cremation services and an additional $450 for services of the crematory (approximately $1,250 less than was paid under the previous policy). Family and friends can contribute additional money for some extra services up to a certain amount.
Recent changes to the policy come as the result of a much higher than expected payout for indigent burials this year and evidence that the previous policy was being abused by people who had financial means to pay for their own, according to Chenango DSS Commissioner Bette Osborne. Previous changes to the policy that were adopted in March, 2013 led to substantial increases in costs to county taxpayers, she said. As of last month, cost projections for indigent burial services were up more than 42 percent from 2013. Until the previous policy was adopted in March, 2013, the county had based eligibility for indigent funeral services on assets other than cash on hand.
“What we’re looking at in 2014 is a county cost of about $215,000. That’s local share,” Osborne said. “What we found is we were spending much more money than we thought we would be spending. We knew with the changes made last year that it might go up, but we didn’t know how much.”
While hopes are that the county will save on expenses for indigent funeral services, some local funeral home directors are questioning the new policy, saying they were left out of the discussion.
Doug Wilson, Director of Wilson Funeral Home in Norwich, said the policy presents some concerns about balancing his overhead expenses with the needs of his clients. He pointed out issues that are dealt with by funeral homes but are not outlined in the policy, such as the lack of accommodation for an outer burial container (i.e. casket and concrete burial enclosure for the casket), the costs of a burial plot which often exceeds the $1,000 limit set by the county, strict specifics of what additional services the families can and can not pay for, and lack of specifics for the deceased who leave and anatomical donation.
“Most of these issues could have been and should have been dealt with before any resolution of this kind was brought to the floor for a vote,” Wilson said in a written statement. “Funeral home owners were not contacted or asked for input.”
Wilson cited figures of public assistance burials from 1989 that he said closely align with what’s paid under the new policy. He said the county – in 1989 – paid funeral homes $1,350 for an adult funeral, plus $280 for a casket and $285 for a concrete grave liner ($1,915 total).
He additionally wrote, “I have had two county supervisors tell me that they believe the families of indigents need to contribute to funeral expenses. By drastically reducing the amount that DSS will pay toward a funeral, they hope to put the onus onto these family members to contribute. NYS law states, however, that the only people liable for an indigent’s funeral expenses are the indigent person themselves or their surviving spouse. What happens in reality is the family doesn’t or cannot contribute so the bill goes unpaid.”
“We have done a survey of other counties around us – bigger and smaller,” Osborne told the Board of Supervisors last week, noting Saratoga County in particular is paying $1,500 for direct burial and only $500 for direct cremation. “This (policy) is meant to be for a small number of people; people who are on cash assistance or people who are truly indigent.”