LITTLE VALLEY — County lawmakers have urged the state to put a hold on a proposal to tighten cemetery regulations, citing the high cost of compliance for small, rural cemeteries.
The Cattaraugus County Legislature on Wednesday sponsored and unanimously approved a resolution urging state lawmakers not to introduce bills that would implement stricter oversight of cemetery corporations, including engineering approvals for the use of heavy equipment and liability insurance mandates.
Albany’s bill requires cemetery companies to carry liability insurance, requires approval from a licensed engineer before activities involving heavy machinery and provides a consumer complaint process.
“A lack of cemetery oversight has led to improper care and upkeep of headstones and cemetery plots, lack of religious compliance and unclear costs,” said Senate Sponsor Joseph Addabbo Jr. , D-Queens, in the rationale for tabling the bill. “This legislation is intended to put in place stricter oversight, appropriate consideration of religious needs, including religious inspectors, and recourse for people who wish to file a complaint against a cemetery society.”
The decision to regulate comes after a February 2021 incident involving the death of a gravedigger after the grave he was digging in a Suffolk County cemetery collapsed and buried him. Another death was reported in October 2021 when a Staten Island worker was killed by a one-ton monument falling on him. This incident was blamed on a lack of maintenance.
The bill also sets out requirements to ensure religious needs are accommodated – such as requiring cemeteries to allow after-hours burials to accommodate certain religious groups, and appointing inspectors to ensure that sections cemeteries dedicated to certain religious groups conform to the customs of that group – as well as providing a system of complaints against cemetery societies.
Lawmakers did not comment on the bill itself beyond the resolution, but all members present offered to sponsor it.
Neither the Senate nor the Assembly versions of the bill have left their respective committees for consideration by the full chambers, and both bills will die at the end of the year as a new Legislative session begins January 1.
