The Illinois Department of Human Services recently notified funeral directors and cemetery owners that the state will no longer pay to bury the poor, but locals who were already helping pay the bills said the state did not offer much money anyway.
“The state has been finicky in how it does its payouts,” said Gary Deiters, owner of Deiters Funeral Home. “The amount they were giving us, $1,000, does not cover our costs.”
Deiters said he does not see many cases in which the family cannot afford to bury the deceased, but when it does happen, the funeral home works with them, he said.
“When we meet with a family whose income is low, we try to work with their budget,” he said. “This will not change our policy. If a family does not have funds, we will arrange the services anyway.”
The state previously paid a maximum of $1,103 per funeral and $552 in burial costs. The DHS pays to bury about 10,000 people each year, at a total cost of $15 million.
In a June 12 letter sent to funeral home directors and cemetery owners, Kit Sponsler, chief of the DHS Bureau of Local Office Transaction and Support Services, blamed the General Assembly’s failure to approve the governor’s spending plan and gave instructions on how recipients can contact legislators.
Payments for the 2010 fiscal year, which begins July 1, will be “pushed” to fiscal 2011, he wrote. But there are no guarantees.
“Obviously, it would be contingent on available funding,” said Tom Green, department spokesman.
Tazewell County coroner Dennis Conover said it was always his understanding that the county, not the state, is responsible for burying the indigent if it’s a coroner’s case.
“I’ve been with the coroner’s office for 13 years, and it clearly states that if we have a death in Tazewell County and can’t find a family member or friend, the county will decently bury the deceased at the county’s expense,” Conover said. “For the state to now say it’s not paying for that service anymore comes as a surprise to this office because we didn’t know they were paying for it before.”
Though it has never been spent, the county sets aside money in its budget each year to pay for the burial of the poor, Conover said.
“We have come close, but we’ve always managed to find a family member or friend,” he said. “We’ve never used the money, but the day will come eventually, of course, and the county board will have to pay for it regardless of the price.”
Harvey Lapin, general counsel for the Illinois Cemetery and Funeral Home Association, said the cutoff in state money will affect funeral homes the most because they are first in line.
“They’ll be getting the bodies,” Lapin said. “They might already have a body before they know it’s an indigent funeral.”
But Deiters said if the state did not make this cut, Illinois’ money problems would eventually affect the funeral home anyway.
“If they don’t cut the budget, then they will have to raise taxes, and if they raise taxes, that gets dispersed amongst my customers like all businesses,” he said. “I’m concerned about the fact that if they don’t cut out the fat, they will have to cut important services instead.”
GateHouse Media contributed to this report.
Washington, Ill. —
