County tours cemetery, talks transfer
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FAIRMONT-- Prior to a work session on Tuesday, the Martin County Board of Commissioners toured the Lakeside Cemetery in Fairmont and afterward the board discussed whether it would like to take over control of the cemetery.
At its regular meeting on July 5, the board heard from Brad Buhmann, president of the Lakeside Cemetery Association, who requested that control of the cemetery be transferred to the county. The board then scheduled Tuesday's work session to talk further about policies, staffing, budgets and assets.
During the tour, Buhmann and Paula Bulfer, treasurer of the association and Jeff Koster, who recently retired from working at the cemetery, showed the board and other county employees some of the equipment and explained some of the cemetery operations.
Following the tour, both parties reconvened at the Martin County Courthouse for the work session, which began with Buhmann explaining what their full-time staff person had been doing before he retired.
"He does everything. He fixes, repairs, maintains. He sells plots... he's the contact for the funeral homes. Just the go-to guy for everything," Buhmann said.
In the past, Koster worked 40 hours a week, plus overtime on weekends when needed for burials. In addition to doing a lot of the mowing, Buhmann said from April through August they've also had two to three part-time people doing mowing.
"Everyone's aging. His part-time help is older than he is and he's retired," Buhmann said.
He added that it takes about 60 hours to mow every week but if there's a burial they may take more time to mow in that area to ensure it looks extra nice.
Commissioner Richard Koons asked Buhmann what the timeline was and Buhmann said, "the sooner the better. Jeff is helping us out but he's maxed out on how much he can make because he's retired."
Commissioner Steve Flohrs asked how hard the association has tried to look for someone to replace Koster. Buhmann said that after they heard that he was retiring, the seven board members got together and determined that it didn't have the time or funds to find someone, especially given that they can't offer any benefits.
"We decided that since we still had money, good equipment and very minimal debt, that in good faith we want to present it to the county or transfer it to the county, not putting a big burden on the county," Buhmann said.
He added that he thought it was at a time where the county could work on fitting the
expenses into the budget for the next year.
The board asked some questions about charges for plots. Commissioner Jaime Bleess questioned what the income would be and how it would offset expenses.
"What are some things we can increase to lessen the burden on the county without going overboard," Bless said.
Buhmann said they only make money through sale of plots, the act of digging the plots and stone setting. He said the wild card is that they don't know who has left money to them in a will.
"We have $50,000 coming from someone who passed but we don't know what's coming. It's real hard for us to try to budget," Buhmann said.
He noted that they send a donation letter annually and they've typically made enough every year to make it through but said this past year was the worst that they've ever had financially.
"I don't think there's anyone in this room who thinks a cemetery is a profitable endeavor," said Koons.
He shared that both he and Commissioner Steve Flohrs have experience in caring for township cemeteries.
"We still as a community feel we owe it to the people who are buried out there. We have personal friends buried in that cemetery... veterans buried in the cemetery," Buhmann said.
County Coordinator Scott Higgins asked whether Lakeside Cemetery's plot sales were comparable to others in the area. Buhmann said their plot sales may be slightly higher than others in the area, but not by much.
Buhmann said he thought the county would see more and more cemeteries, owned by churches or townships, reach out to the county to see if it would take control.
"I think this would be an opportunity for the county to be proactive, instead of reactive, and be prepared," Buhmann said.
Koons said in the township cemetery he knows, there are four or five burials a year. Buhmann pointed out that other than the maintenance of mowing, a lot of them may not require that much work.
Koons said he was divided on the issue because he understood it was a big financial undertaking, but also because he noted there's a changing society. He said people in his generation have stepped up and volunteered to work on maintaining cemeteries.
"The days of that happening are slowly sliding away," Koons said.
He spoke of some other cemeteries in the county, but noted that many of the cities don't have a cemetery in them, but that many cemeteries are run by churches or townships.
"If we say yes to this, it's probably going to start a flood. If we say no to it, you throw the burden back on the board or you see what (the city of) Fairmont says," Koons said.
Belgard said that while he understood the logic of why the association is requesting the county take over, he thought it seemed more likely for the city of Fairmont to take over.
"We have no idea yet what this is going to cost... certainly I appreciate that you brought this to us at a good time, but it's going to take a new county department and we could possibly employ three or four more people full-time," Belgard said.
County Engineer, Kevin Peyman, was present and said if this was something the county wants to do, it's important that it's done right from the start and that a realistic budget is put together. He shared some ideas he has come up with regarding staffing, as well as a budget he came up with going off of past expenditures from the association.
"If you had some more smaller cemeteries, maybe the one full-time manager can manage those without much extra work.. since a lot of those can see three burials a year," Peyman said.
He said there's a lot that can't be planned for, such as revenues because it can't be determined how many people will be buried annually or how many donations will be made to the cemetery in a year.
Koons talked about the large size of Lakeside Cemetery, which spans 34 acres. He said there were advantages to taking it over sooner rather than later if the county were to take it over at all.
"I can't imagine managing this," said Flohrs.
It had been shared that there are about 9,000 occupied spaces at Lakeside Cemetery and still between 6,000 to 7,000 spaces available. There's also 22 acres of farm land on site.
The board talked about what would happen if the city or county didn’t step in to take over the cemetery.
County Attorney Taylor McGowan said, "I don't think our statutes contemplate that situation. Technically it would be an abandoned public cemetery. I think local government would then have the ability to swoop in and maintain it but there wouldn't be any obligation for a governmental entity to do that."
Koons asked whether burials can happen after a cemetery is abandoned. McGowan said once a cemetery is abandoned and there's no association, he didn't think burials could take place.
"What if someone already owns a plot? There's a lot of that out there. What if dad's already out there and mom's name is on the headstone there with no end date... there's a lot of them out there, too," Belgard said.
McGowan said that with the transfer the county is contemplating, the county would need to honor those rights, but in the instance that the cemetery is abandoned and a governmental entity takes control afterward, state statute doesn't indicate that the rights of the plot holder carry over.
The board also talked about funding and brainstormed some different ideas. McGowan said the county can accept donations earmarked for care of the cemetery. Bleess asked whether they could advertise that they're looking for donors. Peyman said the county park department has advertised in the past that people can "leave a legacy" and consider donating to the parks through their will.
The board briefly considered whether this was something the county could put on a referendum to see how the public felt about the issue.
Koons said he knows of other commissioners in other counties and said Martin County isn't the only county that's facing this issue, but that other counties have a request to control cemeteries on the table.
"This has got to be something that's coming up more and more often," Bleess said.
Higgins shared that he had reached out to the Minnesota Association of Cemeteries and was told that it was't aware of any county-owned cemeteries, but it did provide a short list of city-owned cemeteries.
Belgard acknowledged that while the board received a lot of good information, many questions still remained and he said that the budget was a major concern. He asked what the next step was.
He questioned whether the board should get the township boards together to get a feel for how many of them would also want the county to take control of their cemeteries.
Together the board listed about 10 cemeteries belonging to various townships in the county. Higgins said he could work on getting statistics together about the cemeteries in preparation for a joint meeting. The board talked about also reaching out to Fairview Memorial Park, which is not in Fairmont city limits.
"I think if we do ask the question to the township boards, we'll gain more helpful information to help us make a decision," Bleess said.
The issue of private cemeteries was also brought up. Belgard said he doubted whether the church cemeteries would be eager to turn over control of their cemeteries in the near future.
The board will set a time and date for another work session to be held at a later date. It noted that the next meeting could draw a large number of interested people who are either for it, or against it.
"This is an important issue to a lot of people," Belgard said.