A modest fee schedule increase was approved by the Parks, Recreation, and Forestry Committee for Hillside Cemetery.
Fee schedules cover the costs of space, opening and closing. The 3% increase will allow an average of $5-6k extra in yearly revenue to cover increased costs for cemetery maintenance.
“Our fee increases are just an effort to close the gap between expenditure and revenue,” said Mike Baltus, Cemetery Coordinator/Caretaker. “We try to keep it easy on the taxpayers as we can.”
Besides normal operations, costs for the cemetery include replacing equipment once every five years, building maintenance, and an ongoing project to fix internal roads that began two years ago. Other considerations are fluctuating revenue depending on sales that year, and fuel costs.
“A cemetery is the only place in a the whole world you talk forever,” he said. “Someone is going to cut the grass forever, plow snow forever. How do you put a price on that?”
The fee schedule is looked over and updated every year. Changes will take effect on January 1, 2019.
