Members of the Senate Commerce and Energy committee passed two bills that allow cemeteries more flexibility in control and use of funds. House Bill 1125 allows cemetery corporations to administer perpetual care and maintenance guarantee funds after petitioning a circuit court for control. House Bill 1127 expands the cemeteries’ use of income and principal gained in perpetual care and maintenance guarantee funds once a certain threshold is met. Representative Charles Hoffman supports both bills…and says House Bill 1127 does allow for the upkeep of grounds, but in more ways.
“This would allow some of the interest that’s not needed for maintaining that cemetery above that maintenance interest income to be used for long term, one time option payments for something like a lawn mower or a building. What the connection is, is that this fund has to be maintained and 1127 maintains that only good actors will be able to follow through with this. It permeates through any person that’s a bad actor and wants to spend that trust fund down to a non-interest bearing fund,” Hoffman says.
Opponents of the bills say money is needed in those funds to account for changing trends in how people are buried, and that corporations don’t always follow through with ground care.
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