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Atlantic Cemetery may receive City-funded support beginning next January

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August 29th, 2017 by Ric Hanson

The Atlantic Cemetery Association, which is run by a private board of directors, is near insolvency. That was the word during a meeting Monday evening, of the City of Atlantic’s Personnel and Finance Committee, at City Hall. Councilman Dick Casady and Gerald Brink are on the Cemetery Board.

Brink explained the Cemetery Association’s financial situation in more details, and why they have a good deal of red ink on their books. He said “The way things look right now, basically, probably around the first of the year we’re probably gonna run out of money. We probably will need in the vicinity of $25,000 a year just to sustain this thing.”  Brink said one of the reasons they’ve run into financial issues, is that there used to be well over 100 burials per year. The last several years, however, the average has been around 60 burials per year. More cremations also mean less funds for the Cemetery, because urns cost less to bury.

The cost of burials and interments were raised back in April to help compensate for the loss of funds. Brink said the cost of repairing equipment for burials and grounds maintenance for the 44 acres is another expense they’re dealing with. There is only one full-time employee and a couple of part-time employees working for the Cemetery Association, who are in charge of burials and grounds maintenance.

The City will submit a letter to the Iowa Insurance Commissioner requesting a draw-down of funds from the Perpetual Care Trust, but according to Brink, they can’t touch that. About $200,000 is in the Trust. Brink says the best they could hope for is to gain some funds from interest on the Trust. He said also, that if they run out of money and have to shut down, according to law, the City of Atlantic will have to assume full operation of the Cemetery. Brink suggested it would be better for the City to subsidize the Cemetery, than it would be for the City assuming the sale of burial plots.

After much discussion, the Personnel and Finance Committee agreed to recommend to the Atlantic City Council, that the City pay $2,000 per month from January 1st through June 30th, 2018, to keep the Cemetery Association afloat, and find explore other options during that time frame.