Rising Need for Pauper Burials Prompts More Funding

EDITOR'S CORRECTION: Due to incorrect information given to the Bristol Herald Courier an error appeared in this article about Sullivan County's pauper burial program. Sullivan County's only crematorium is at Oakley-Cook Funeral Home and Crematory, 2223 Volunteer Parkway in Bristol, Tenn.

BRISTOL, Tenn. – An hour-long visitation in the chapel and either cremation or burial in a simple silver casket: That’s what comes with a pauper burial, a publicly sponsored funeral service reserved for indigent Sullivan County residents.

And while it’s not the Weaver Funeral Home’s most impressive burial package, it’s good enough for people who die and leave literally nothing behind but the shirts on their backs.

“In most cases, it’s the folks who just don’t have the means to pay for a funeral,” Weaver Funeral Director Tom Barnett said of pauper burials. “Not everyone is fortunate to have a job or to have any assets” they could use to pay for funeral expenses, he said.

Citing an increase in the need for these services, county officials are looking to almost double the money set aside for pauper burials in this year’s budget.

“We’ve had so many requests for pauper burials that we’ve had to increase the funding,” said County Mayor Steve Godsey, whose office supervises the pauper
burial program.

Godsey’s request – which would nearly double the program’s funding from $10,200 to $20,000 – is one of only a handful of new spending requests that’s been included in this year’s proposed $165 million spending plan.

The services

According to records obtained from Godsey’s office, funeral homes operating in Sullivan County have handled 51 pauper burials in the past two years.

To qualify for the program, Godsey said, a decedent must have lived in the county for at least one year before his or her death. Their friends and family members also must sign an affidavit stating they cannot afford to pay for a typical funeral service.

This paperwork must be approved by the decedent’s county commissioner and turned in to the mayor’s office. Once the service is performed, Godsey said, the funeral home gets a reimbursement check for $750 to pay at least some of the funeral’s costs.

The typical funeral costs $6,500, said Barnett, whose 7th Street chapel has handled 11 pauper burials since January 2008, according to the records from Godsey’s office.

Barnett said most decedents are cremated and their cremains are given to a loved one following an hour-long visitation service in the funeral home’s chapel.

Those who die and did not want to be cremated are placed in what Barnett called a “nice-looking” metal casket that normally retails for $950.

People choosing to bury their loved ones, Barnett said, must find a gravesite, pay for the casket’s container and pay any fees associated with opening and closing the grave. Barnett said the funeral home’s staff will offer them a graveside service, which can last about half an hour depending on how much the decedent’s loved ones have to say.

“We just give them a normal service and write off the rest of it,” Akard Funeral Home Director David Akard said.

The trend

Akard and Barnett said their pauper burial business varies from month to month. County funeral homes turned in paperwork for six pauper burials in June, two in July and none for the entire month of August.

Over a recent 10-day period, however, pauper services were performed by Bluff City’s Tetrick Funeral Home and Kingsport’s Hamlett-Dobson Funeral Home, bringing the county’s total number to 27 this year.

“I figure we’ll have even more if the economy stays the way it is,” Tetrick Funeral Director Kenny Arnold said. Tetrick’s pauper burial last week was the first his business has had in the past two years, according to Godsey’s paperwork.

The county’s total number of pauper burials so far for this year, already has surpassed its 2008 total of 26 services and is just one shy of its 2007 total of 28 services.

The trend also is playing out across the country, according to an article that ran last week in The Tennessean. Both the Vanderbilt School of Medicine and the University of Tennessee Body Farm have had to stop accepting cadaver donations because they have no space.

Los Angeles has had to stop its crematory program after it saw twice the number of indigent deaths in the first six months of 2009 than in the last six months of 2008, according to the article.

Sullivan County is taking drastic measures by increasing pauper burial funding for the first time since the 2007 fiscal year, when it raised the funeral home reimbursement rate from $500 per service to the current $750.

Godsey’s assistant, Wanda Bartee, said this change went in right about the time the county’s public cemetery and crematorium in Blountville ran out of space and funeral homes were asked to do more than just cremate bodies or embalm them.

Bartee, who handles most of the pauper burial paperwork as it comes in, said she’s not sure why there’s been an increase in demand for the services, but she’s got a few ideas.

One reason could be that there’s been an increase in the number of elderly people who rent their homes than those who own them outright. When these people die, Bartee said, they don’t have any real property they can sell to pay for a funeral.

She also said that times are tight and one way people could be cutting back on their expenses is to let their life insurance coverages lapse. There’s also been an increase in violent crimes, especially among the indigent and people who don’t have jobs, she said.

But whatever the reason for the increase, there’s almost no question that Godsey’s pauper burial funding request will pass when the full Sullivan County Commission votes on this year’s budget – which covers the fiscal year that started July 1 – at its Sept. 21 meeting.

“What would you do with the bodies?” Godsey asked rhetorically when asked why it was important for the county to operate a pauper burial program in the first place.

gmclean@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2518